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Week 9 — Feeling Good

Jun6

I can hardly believe it’s Week 9.  I’m feeling pretty good this week.  My most previous weight loss effort fizzled at Week 16; well, probably before that, but Week 16 is the last week I blogged about it.  So, I’m past the halfway point of that effort, and have already been exercising for longer than I did in that effort. I’m quite proud of being in a state of mind that isn’t allowing for excuses to get out of exercising.

It’s time for another recap of how I’m feeling; and in a word, it’s “good”.   Any number of things that were bothering me when I first started this effort have either decreased quite a bit or disappeared entirely.  My knees are feeling better, which is a huge thing; this is probably a combination of weather, exercising, and losing weight.  Matters of personal hygiene are easier.  My ability to get up from a seated position is improving greatly.

All of my clothes are fitting better, including underwear.  I have several pairs of shorts that I’ve been living in, and they are to a point of being absolutely disgraceful; they are huge and shapeless.  I really need to get rid of them, but I don’t have enough comfortable alternatives at the moment.  Shirts that were a little on the snug side are now getting loose.   Bathing suits are fitting differently.

Mentally, I feel pretty strong right now.  I’m in a groove.  Eating healthy isn’t an issue, and getting exercise in is a priority.  I’m drinking enough water and getting enough sleep.  These are the things that really need to be in place in order for me to lose weight.

I seem to have hit on the right number of carbs and calories for me to lose, in combo with exercise, at this point in my journey.   I have done some things differently this time around, and they seem to be helping.  Usually, when I do low carb, I depend on cheese, to the point where I might eat six or more ounces of cheese a day.  I’ve reduced the amount of cheese I eat; usually, at most, I might have two ounces.  Before, I relied heavily on protein and fats; and while that’s still an important part of my diet, I am trying to include vegetables.  I find that when I do that, I can reduce the total number of calories I’m taking in, and I need the veggies, anyway.  I have also cut down on fats like salad dressing and mayo; I use less salad dressing on my salads.  Instead of a (bunless) burger with cheese and mayo, I skip the cheese, and might either replace mayo with salsa, or mix a smaller amount with salsa.  It’s the moisture I’m looking for, anyway, since our home burgers tend to be on the dry side.

As for exercise, I’m sticking with cardio, which currently is swimming laps or water jogging, depending on if I’m sharing space in the pool.  I go for 45 minutes a session.  I’m going to continue with cardio, perhaps until the end of the summer, and then at that point will likely start working on strength training in addition to cardio.  For me, though, cardio is it; not only do I need to get my heart in shape, but at least for now, this is my best bet for burning calories and getting stronger at the same time.

Summary: Week 9, and everything seems to be working.  Hurrah!

Patience, grasshopper!

May20

Today is my weekly try-on day for my goal pants.  They seem a little more comfortable in the thighs, but not in the stomach area.  They have gut-holders in them (er… “slimming panels”), so that’s probably going to be the last area where they’re comfy.  I admit that it’s really difficult to tell minute differences; and that’s what they are — minute.  Theoretically, if I’m somewhere around 300 pounds (and I am!), and I’m losing a healthy 1-2 pounds a week, that’s less than 1% of my total body weight.

Considering that the 1% (rounding up!) may or may not be in an area that the pants cover, it’s not necessarily the most reliable indicator of loss, especially over a week’s time, so I am cautioning myself to use reason and not start thinking wild thoughts like “OMG, I’M NOT LOSING ANYTHING!” (Before someone adds “why don’t you measure?”, measurement is also only going to show very minute differences at this point, and when you’re measuring predominantly fat areas of your body, it’s difficult to get a good, reliable measurement because… well… fat moves.  It’s mushy.)

They say that you lose weight in the reverse proportions of how you gained it.  It’s not a proportional gain/loss that’s spread all over the body equally.  One week, I may lose everything in my butt; the next, in my torso.  And I have been losing in my torso — I was just over the threshold into 3X territory in most shirts and tops when I started this plan.  I have recently bought new tops and returned a couple of them to go down to 2X, and my previous 2X tops are fitting better than they were.

I have to keep in mind overall fit, even if I’m just judging on one pair of pants.  For instance, I have dozens of pairs of underwear that are all labeled the same size, but some fit more liberally than others.  Weeks ago, I had to watch what pair I put on, or I’d be uncomfortable pretty quickly.  There are still some rogue ones that I stay away from, but I have a much wider selection of undies available for comfy wear, now.  😀

Go ahead and laugh — the car fits better.  The open space between my gut/thighs and the steering wheel is increasing.  It’s easier for me to get in and out; not only because I have more room,  but because my leg muscles are getting stronger from exercise.

I’m feeling thinner, too.  It’s not that occasional “hey, I feel thin today!” feeling that many of us get, which unfortunately rotates with that “dang, I feel fat today!” feeling.  It’s an overall sense of taking up less space than I did before, and being more comfortable in my own skin.  Make no mistake… I’m often still the largest person in the room, and no one knows that more than I do.  But that icky/ponderous/embarrassed to be in public feeling has decreased.

But when it comes to the try-on pants… I admit that I’m impatient.  I want them to be falling off my hips next week, and that’s just not going to happen.  I have to remind myself to be patient, and that the effects of losing weight will be cumulative over time.  I am dedicated to the long haul.  I have to think in terms of fitting into something I like next year or two months from now, not next week.  It may well take another 7-8 weeks for these capris to be perfectly comfortable, but it will happen.

That’s the thing I’ve always found to be perplexing about myself; I can be an infinitely patient person, but in the past, I’ve gotten impatient with weight loss and then given up, which is stupid.  It makes no sense to give up because it’s taking seemingly forever to get to a weight loss goal, when giving up means it’ll never happen at all.  Guess what?  That doesn’t work!  Big surprise!  The food I choose to fuel my body with today is a lot less important than how my body feels in the long run, so making the right choice at this moment will pay off, no matter how long it takes.

Week 5: Habits

May9

How long does it take to form a habit?  Some say 21 days; others, 30; and some even suggest that it can be as short as 15-18 days, or as long as most of a year.  The one thing that seems to make a major difference, though, is early repetition.  The sooner you throw yourself completely into a new habit, the sooner it becomes habit.

Five weeks in to this plan, I’m finding that to be very true.  My most recent weight loss effort, which was the start of this blog last year, shows that I didn’t start exercise for several weeks after getting on plan.  This time around, exercise was included from the first week, and I’m happy to report that although I missed one exercise session in the very first week, every week since then has been an exercise success, and my body seems to be liking the change.  Last time, it was tedious.  This time, I’m enjoying going down and getting in the pool.  Last time, I played mental games with myself about putting off exercise for another day.  This time, I’m sticking to a schedule as much as possible.

Five weeks in, I’m handling food fairly well.  I did have a talk with myself, last week, about meal replacements; I had stockpiled Atkins bars when I first started the program, and quickly discovered that it was just too darned easy for me to use that as an option instead of a healthy meal.  So, the only time I’m buying them is when I know I’ll have to have meal replacements because of a schedule or location problem.  Other than that?  I won’t have any on the shelves.

I’m going through the normal bumps that anyone faces while sticking to an eating plan, but they don’t seem to be as major this time around.  Perhaps that initial fake it ’til you make it got me off on the right foot, and it’s been easier to fall into a habit.

In other news…

I’m glad to report that my body continues to improve.  Yeast skin patches are getting better; they’re not quite gone yet, but they’ve definitely improved.  Heart palpitations have disappeared altogether.  I can’t even remember the last time I had one.  My knees are feeling better.  A hip problem I was having seems to be improving.

I sleep a LOT better than before; I’m a very light sleeper, and if I didn’t take something at night to help keep my eyes shut, my mind would be working in the small hours of the night.  Now, I sleep solidly and often don’t awake at all until morning.  I’m rising earlier and feeling much better rested as a result.  I’m pretty sure that’s because of the swimming.

Exercise

I have worked my sessions up to 45 minutes each session, three sessions a week.  As of this week, I’m adding a fourth session.  I’ve also been able to do some limited swimming; this works really well.  If I can get in the pool and not disturb anyone else, I can swim laps, which I have always felt was the absolutely ideal exercise for me.  If space is a problem, I can water jog in place.  Most times, it’s been a combination of the two.  Today, I swam 21 laps.  Go, me!

At this point, my goal is cardio, and only cardio.  My heart is already getting healthier, and I’m breathing better; if you want to work your lungs, the pool’s the place to do it.  I want a lot of cardio, so I can bring up my cardiovascular system while my body drops weight.  Eventually, I will work up to five workout sessions per week, and stay somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour per session, depending on how my body is reacting.  I see myself staying in cardio mode for several months; probably until the end of the summer.  At that point, I should be ready to return to strength training.

That’s it!

That’s all there is to report, as if that’s not enough!  I’m glad that things seem to be going well.  Each day that goes by, the more I want to progress.  Honestly, while I talked a good game last time, I’m not sure I ever really got my head in the right place.  Now, I feel like it is.  And it feels damned good!

Four Weeks, FTW!

May2

Yes, my friends: four weeks, FOR THE WIN!  While I haven’t gotten to a weighing point yet (beyond my initial weigh-in), I believe things are going quite well.  This time around has been easier.

I believe one of the reasons is because I’ve taken away my mental arguments about weighing.  I feel great when I see the scale go down, and even if I’m feeling on top of the world right before a weigh-in that shows a gain (or no loss), I feel like a failure.  I can tell myself all the normal stuff of how my body is still making progress despite what the scale says, that I’m getting stronger and healthier, that my measurements are a better indicator… but when it comes right down to it, unfavorable scale readings really do get in my head.  Removing that from the equation has made things a lot easier.

In fact, when I do get down into my goal pants, I’m considering not weighing at that point, either.  Sure, somewhere down the road, I will likely weigh in; if I go to the doctor, I won’t have a choice.  Neutralizing that mind game shifts my focus to what’s important: the true signs of what’s happening with my body.

I have three months before leaving for vacation.  I will have to be more mobile than I currently am, if I’m going to enjoy my vacation, so I intend to focus myself on that goal and continue strongly through vacation.  I have nearly one month behind me, and from my experience, getting back on the wagon is a battle won.  The next battle is staying focused and committed enough to stick to it, and that’s where I am, now.

That Whole Pants Thing…

Apr29

That whole pants thing?  You know, the one where I said I’d try on pants in a smaller size until they fit, instead of a weekly weigh-in followed by a weekly mental flogging?  Well, that’s working.

Each Friday, I’ve been trying on my goal pants.  This morning, the button and buttonhole at the waist touch each other but don’t quite meet.  A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky to get the pants up over my hips.  This is good progress.  Maybe, by next week, I’ll be able to do the whole lay-on-the-bed-and-suck-your-gut thing and be able to button them.  (Oh, come on.  If you’re here and reading this, I bet you’ve done that.)

I won’t be weighing in again until I feel like I’ve lost enough weight that these pants are fit for public consumption, but I think at this rate, that’s still a few weeks away.  Better just a few weeks away, though, than where I started!  Even though the goal pants don’t fit, yet, I can tell that I’m losing weight; the jeans I wear were getting embarrassingly constricted.  Now, they fit more like they’re supposed to fit.  They’re not baggy, yet, but they definitely look and feel better.  I haven’t really noticed any substantial difference from the waist up, but I’m sure that will come.

A confession: although I failed in my last weight loss effort, having written this blog helped me get back on the wagon.  I was actually googling a term that’s related to my knee problem, and was surprised when *this blog* showed up in the search results.  It caught me by surprise, and that, with a number of other factors, convinced me that I should give this another try.

I’m glad I’m back in this, again.  I think I’m more ready this time, to see it through in the long term, than I have been on recent attempts.  I think it was smart of me to use some other indicator than a scale to measure my progress; I noticed while rereading previous posts, this morning, that I was scale-obsessed in the last attempt.  Minimizing that dependence has been good for me.  Self-awareness is helping.

The Good, The Bad, The Fugly.

Apr6

I think I made a wise decision to start back on plan this past Monday. I meant to get down to the gym and weigh, so I’d have an official start weight; I wasn’t able to do it Monday or yesterday. So, on Day 3… I weighed, and I worked out.

 

The Good: I started working out, again.  My choice: water walking.  I’m not sure what else to call it… I’m not really walking in the pool; I’m doing light jogging.  It’s great exercise for me, because I need something that’s no-impact, gives me decent cardio workouts, and also works my entire body.  Moving nearly my whole body against water is just the thing I need.

When I gave up last September, I’d just bought a waterproof case and headphones for my mp3 player, as well as a waterproof heart monitor.  I didn’t wear the heart monitor today, but I’m happy to report that the waterproof case and headphones for my mp3 player worked quite well.

 

The Bad: I don’t think there’s really a “bad” to getting back on plan, no matter how slow I have to start out.  I’m moving, and I’m eating better.  I can already tell that I’m dropping water weight; and I know it’s water weight because I had some edema in my left foot, and that’s gone down.  Maybe the bad is that I’ve already lost a couple pounds of weight (water or fat, it’s still weight) before having an initial weigh-in.

 

The Fugly: My new starting weight, which you’ll see posted on the upper right of the screen: 334 pounds.  I have gained 51 pounds from last September, and it’s April.  Pregnant people don’t gain this fast.  You’d think I fell off the wagon and started snarfing down twinkies with reckless abandon: that’s not so.  I definitely could have eaten better than I did.

For me personally, it’s a bit of a blow, because my start weight back in 2002, before I started a low carb journey that led me to lose 140.5 pounds, was 337.  Now, I wasn’t able to weigh for several weeks, so I probably lost 20-30 pounds before that start weight.  Nonetheless, today’s weight is an indicator of several things that I need to accept.

  • If I choose to have carbs in my diet, I choose to gain weight.  It’s as simple as that.  Sure, eating too many calories is going to slap chunks of lard on my bubble butt, but nothing seems to do that quicker than the addition of carbs.  And not even extreme carbs; if I had been keeping a food diary over recent months, it likely would have shown that I probably ate approximately the RDA of 300 carbs a day.  I just can’t do it.  Not if I want to be healthy.
  • While I’m flogging myself over what I’ve allowed to happen since getting to a low of 197.5 several years back, I need to remember that while I’ve gained nearly everything back, I haven’t topped out.  I still have some of the clothes from the “old days” as a reminder.  I was in a 4x top and size 32 jeans.  I am currently in 3x top and size 26 jeans, although they’re tight.  While the path ahead of me is difficult, I have already proven that I can do this, and I’m not at the horrible start point that I was at, before.
  • If I don’t get my head right, it’ll be the death of me — literally.  This isn’t a quest for cute clothes.  It’s a battle for my life.  I’m a few months short of 50 years old; if I want to see a few more decades, I need to do something and do it now.  I can no longer allow my head to tell me things are okay when they aren’t.  And those are the facts.

I have admitted to those close to me that my head isn’t quite in this just yet; that I’m faking it until I make it.  Seeing my weight this morning was a wake-up call, particularly since I’ve put on so much weight so fast.  It’s no wonder that I’m out of breath; that I have terrific joint pain; that it doesn’t take much to wear me out.

When I was around 200 pounds, which is still fairly heavy for someone my height, I took scuba diving lessons, and had to be able to walk with the tank and gear on.  A full tank plus gear (weights, BC, suit, octo, etc.) runs somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-80 pounds.  I was very fit at the time, able to squat over 250 pounds, and yet, having to carry that gear made me feel like I was going to run myself into the ground.  My weight plus the scuba gear was somewhere around 260-280 pounds; I weigh much more than that right now.  I’m lugging around the equivalent of twice as much scuba gear.  My body is pissed at me.  I can feel it with every step.

In conclusion… while my head still isn’t 100% in the game, it’s much closer than it was just a couple days ago.  I’ll add this, though; since I have already recognized that weighing and not seeing success measured on the scales tends to mess with my head, I have decided that I will only weigh when I change pants sizes.  I’m in a tight 26 right now.  I have jeans of every size down to 16.  When I reach size 24 in something — that can be shorts, too — I will weigh again.  Then, if that number isn’t what I want, I will already have the reinforcing knowledge of knowing that I’m in a smaller size, and that’s a big indicator of success.

Thanks for taking this journey with me.  I’m promising you — and myself, most of all — that I’m going to do what’s necessary to make this work.

Restart #4,892… Day 1.

Apr4

Sometimes, it feels like I’ve dieted that many times in my lifetime.  Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating *just a tad*.

I decided to make this Day 1 for this effort.  I’m going low carb, again, since that has been the most successful plan for me to date, and I tend to feel really good when I’m low carbing.  Once I get past the initial carb-bitching that my body does, I tend to settle into the appetite-suppression effects of Atkins quite nicely.

I haven’t weighed, yet.  Once I have, you’ll see the weight posted in place of the progress info to the right.  I can’t weigh on my  home scales; I have to go to the gym to do it.  I’m hoping that later in the day, I’ll be able to go to the gym for my initial exercise session; I’ll be doing pool work, again.  It’s a stormy day and I can’t be in the pool if there’s lightning in the area, so exercise may end up starting tomorrow.  I plan to start off easy; 3 times a week, and I’m shooting for 30 minutes of movement of some kind for each session.  As badly out of shape as I am, 30 minutes can seem like a lifetime, but the really good side of pool work is that it works my lungs.  I can walk across my yard and get winded, so I definitely need improvement, there.

My goal, today?  To get through today.  I’m pretty sure I can do this, one day at a time.

How It Feels: April, 2011

Apr4

I originally wrote about how my physical and mental self felt in June of last year.  The quotes are from there.  I’m elaborating a bit more to make note of what’s currently going on with me.

It’s summer and hot out; I have skin patches that are likely yeast related.  I’m currently taking probiotics, because they do help, but losing weight so those areas aren’t constantly moist will help.  The worst spots are the folds behind my knees; the skin there is red and definitely painful to the touch.  I am usually seated, so the backs of my knees are kept in skin folds from fat.  In the past, when I was heavier than I am now, I also had these patches underneath my breasts, but those have not returned.
Those patches are still there.  I have stopped taking probiotics; I should start taking them, again, because they do help.  The skin patches are likely not going to go away until I’ve (a) lost weight, and (b) stopped spending most of my time in a seated position.  Because of arthritis in my knees, I also sleep with my knees bent, so this compounds things.  (Bending my knees when I’m sleeping is a comfort thing.)

I have severe arthritis in both knees.  The arthritis hurts more when I am retaining water.  One knee is bone-on-bone and is often sore, but I have already noticed some relief, thanks in part to losing weight.  Although the arthritis will never go away, it will feel better as I continue to lose weight.

At this moment, the arthritis is pretty painful.  I have swelling in my left foot, and it never seems to totally go away.  The knee brace I wear, which was custom-made for the weight I was when they made it for me, is uncomfortable; that should be better when I take off a few pounds.  It’ll fit better.  I take orthovisc injections in both knees, and will be taking the first series of injections later this week.  This does help with pain.

Currently, I can only walk short distances; in part because of the arthritis.  I have quite a bubble butt right now, which I think is contributing heavily to lower back and hip pain.  If I sit for a few minutes, I’m okay.  If I sit for any length of time, though, my knees are stiff and my left hip makes it difficult to walk.

I also have signs of plantar fasciitis in my left heel.  Additional weight is probably pressuring and flattening my foot.

I cannot cross my legs when I sit.  My thighs are too big.

I find it disconcerting to have to find a chair in a public place that will either fit my girth or support me.  It’s embarrassing to have to even consider it when out and about.  *snip* I was so incredibly embarrassed.  I also find it difficult to sit in bar stools, and I have to swallow my pride and tell wait staff to not seat me in a bar stool.

Whether it’s true or not, I often feel as if I’m the biggest person in the room, and that silent judgments are being made about me.  I know how it is.  Heck, I’ve been on the other end, pitying some poor man or woman who was grossly overweight, and thinking that they should just do something about it.  How sad is that?  Maybe they are doing something about it.  Maybe I’m seeing them 100 or more pounds less than what they were before.  Just because someone is extremely obese does not mean they’re doing nothing, but I know how many people jump to that conclusion.

All these statements are still true.

We play trivia at a bar every week.  It’s a very popular place on that night, and I feel claustrophobic when I’m there.  The tables and spaces between chairs are crammed so tight that I feel like I wouldn’t be able to get out in an emergency — a group one, or my own — and this raises my anxiety level.  It’s loud.  It’s dark. It’s often hot.  I have a hard time, there, because these circumstances make me feel that instinctual fight or flight thing, and I just want to snap at people.  I may have felt this at a lower weight, but not nearly to the point that I do, now.

There’s also a woman who plays trivia each week.  Actually, she’s a fairly pretty woman.  She’s large, but not as large as I am.  She dresses well, keeps her makeup nice… but she’s loud and obnoxious, often because she’s drinking a lot.  Both my husband and another friend have commented on that big, fat chick.  Okay, so she’s obnoxious and overly flirtatious when she’s been drinking, but I have to admit that I cringe when they describe her this way, as if being fat is even more of an indictment against her.  I immediately think what do you really think of *me*? I know that they probably don’t mean anything by it other than as a descriptor, but it sticks on the note cards I file in the back of my brain.

Generally speaking, I have problems with social settings.  Some friends have wanted to do a girls’ night out for a while, and I have been the stick-in-the-mud when it comes to suggestions.  Bowling?  No can do.  Horse races?  Go without me.  I have a hard time accepting invitations for things that will either make my current limitations stand out, or those current limitations will hold my friends back… and they just might be tempted to talk about me out of earshot.

I hesitate to talk about weight loss, too, because I feel awkward when well-meaning people who have much less of a weight problem than I do want to give me advice or recommend a diet.

I also feel awkward when I feel like I have to defend myself.  My mother does this to me.  I love her dearly, but as she ages, her ability to filter her words decreases and she’s liable to say pretty hurtful stuff.  I can tell that she’s angry with me because I’ve put so much weight back on, but I also never got the feeling that she was totally happy with me when I managed to get it off.  It wasn’t enough for her, but at the same time, she felt I was pushing myself too hard.  I probably was, but that was the only way I was going to keep the weight off.

I think her failure to accept my obesity is probably pretty commonplace; she just doesn’t keep it to herself.  She can’t accept that I am different; that what may work for her or others, does not necessarily work as well for me.   And frankly, just because Dr. Oz or some other tv doctor says that this or that is the ideal way to lose weight or get fit, that it’s going to work for my circumstances.  Or that The Biggest Loser doesn’t select representative people with metabolic issues; they select people who make good tv.

Back to my body… movement is difficult.  I feel very prone to falling; not just because of the weight I’m carrying, which sometimes makes me feel off-balance, but because of arthritis.  I can’t move quickly and decisively; I have to think about movement.

This is especially bad first thing in the morning.  I feel wobbly when I get up in the night to use the bathroom, or first thing in the morning.

Getting up from a seated position can be awkward and painful.  I snore when I sleep.  Shoes that I wore when I was thinner  no longer fit, because my weight is flattening my arches and increasing the length of my feet.

I have occasional back pain and hip pain, as well as ankles that crackle and knees that pop.  These things will improve with weight loss and with muscle strengthening.

And that’s how I feel right now.

This pretty much finishes it for the moment. I’ll review this in 6 months and see how things have changed.

 

Here I am, again.

Apr3

Ain’t nuthin’ new, unfortunately: I jumped off the wagon with both feet and effectively put an end to the progress I was making.  Not only that, but I gained back the weight.

I’m not quite sure why it is that my brain thinks that going off the program is the answer to not making progress; if anything, I lose any progress I’ve made.  It all circles back to the basic premise of why I started this blog in the first place: the best and worst tool I have at my disposal is my brain.  When it’s in the right place, everything goes great.  When it’s not, seemingly no amount of scolding will get it to accept that giving up is not the answer.

I know this.  No one has to tell me.  I know it as certainly as I know that weighing myself can be as much of a demotivator as a motivator.  I know it as certainly as I know that just about every effect of exercising is a good one.  And yet, I set myself up for failure and do it, anyway.

I am pushing forward to another effort. I’ve been thinking about it for a while; I desperately need to change my ways.  And I desperately need to get my head in the right place.  It’s going to take using some methods that I haven’t used, before, and ones that at first glance, may seem kind of dumb to the general populace, but the idea here is to take my brain out of the equation until it’s so totally set in the right place that nothing will shake it.  I know this is possible.  I’ve done it before.

I haven’t picked a start date, yet.  It just might be tomorrow.

So, what’s so different?  What am I going to do this time to get around my biggest hurdle — my own brain?  Well, for one thing, I am going to take away the demotivators — as many of them as I can, so my brain can’t whisper to me that this is yet another failure, stop now.   These are my demotivators, as I see them:

 

Stats. I’m a stats girl.  I love stats and numbers; as a website developer, stats and judging progress from stats, manipulating numbers… those are a big part of what I do.   In weight loss, I’m just as much of a stats girl, but I tend to lose myself in them; if the scale doesn’t say what I think it should, I might tell myself that this or that is the reason, but there’s a chunk of my brain yelling FAILURE! at me.  I am notoriously tough on myself, and I don’t give myself breaks.  So what’s the solution?  I’m taking the stats out of the equation.  I will do an initial weigh-in, and then… drumroll… I’m not weighing.  Not unless I have to go to the doctor.  At some point in the future, maybe several months down the road, I might weigh.  I will also take initial measurements, but I’m staying away from the measuring tape otherwise.  I may also take initial pics, but I won’t take another set of pics unless I’m in a different size of clothing.

That means there won’t be weekly check-in numbers, like I was doing before, but I will write here, regardless.

I’ll be judging my loss on a couple of things: how my clothes fit, and how my body feels.  I have a plethora of weight-related complaints; I will know I’m making progress as those complaints abate.  These really are the top two things that matter in the long run, anyway, and if these items are showing progress, then who cares what the scale says?

 

Exercise. I’m still trying to figure out what to do about this one.  I have a hard time with exercise.  At my current weight and in my current circumstances, I’m pretty much restricted to pool work.  I like pool work when I’m actually in the pool; but getting there and getting out is a pain in the butt.  It becomes easy for my brain to convince me to not go, because it’s going to be tough.  I may need to pair exercise with something I really enjoy doing, so when I do one, I do both.  I’m totally up for suggestions. It has to be something I can do several times a week; and I live in a small town, so my resources are limited.  Initially, I’m thinking of pairing exercise with tanning.

 

As for motivators, I need to do things for myself that make me feel good about myself.  I feel absolutely ponderous, these days, and I just hate the way it makes me feel.  When I feel this way, my inner voice tells me that I’m the fattest one in the room, and that means I’m gross, so why make the effort to try to make myself look better?  Isn’t it like putting lipstick on a pig?  So I often don’t bother to make the effort to do my hair or makeup, or dress nicely.  I have the tools at my disposal; I need to treat myself better, because when I do these things for myself, I feel better.  It’s like that feeling of wearing nice underthings; no one else may see them, but if it makes you feel good, it’s worth it.

I need to get outside, and out of the house, as much as possible.  When you’re self-employed and morbidly obese, it’s an easy thing to become a hermit.  To shut yourself off from other people.  It becomes a demotivator when people ask me how much weight I’ve lost, and all they can talk about is weight loss.  I am tired of my weight being one of my identifiers… and honestly, when I lost a lot of weight several years back (140 pounds), I grew tired of one of my identifiers being my weight loss.

I’ll be giving more thought to this, but for now, this is where I am, and this post is my commitment to returning to the things that will help me achieve health.

Week 16: Stay The Course

Sep25

I’m in the process of dumping the water weight I’ve put on in the last couple weeks.  The reasons for the gain are numerous, but they come down to one thing: not being as careful as I should be.  I’m glad to report that this past week, I have had perfect fitness days, which means that fluid intake, exercise, and eating have all been right where they need to be.  As a result, I lost four pounds of the water weight I’ve gained over the last couple of weeks.  I have three more to go, and as long as I am working my plan, I’m sure they will leave, as well — and hopefully carry a few pounds of fat with them.

I think some of the water weight is lingering because I got my exercise mojo back this week, and changed some things up; muscle requires water to repair.  As my muscles repair, the water needed for that will join the rest that’s flooding out.  I’ll outline my exercise changes on the Exercise Progress page.

Now… on to something that I’m not happy about.  That’s sabotage.  These past couple of weeks, I’ve sabotaged myself and not been as focused as I should have been; but I’ve also allowed others to sabotage my efforts.  While it pisses me off to have to work against the devices of those who say they love me, letting them sabotage me is my own decision. My success is my responsibility, not theirs, regardless of any support (or lack of it) they may show.

Sabotage is one of those endless mind games, and I think that I’m more prone to letting sabotage creep in around the edges in the state I’m in — that state in which my weight loss is still not noticeable to others (unless they were already aware of it, because I told them), and there’s still that part of my mind that says you can back out, now, before it’s too late.  I have no intention of doing that, but I admit that having the reinforcement of people noticing weight loss does tend to beat down that inner voice, and that vulnerability to sabotage.

Dear Sabotage: Screw You. Signed, Inner Voice.