I’ve lost another four pounds since last Friday; I am now precisely 11 pounds above my low. While things slowed down considerably this week, I’m still losing, and that’s progress. The rapid loss I had last week was much like the loss people see at the very beginning of a diet; a water loss, which is usually a lot more impressive on the scale than actual loss of body fat.

Water, water – EVERYWHERE.

Although seeing big losses makes me feel good, and I have needed that boost, knowing that I’m to the actual body reduction part of weight loss is also encouraging. I’m also a little bit surprised that I don’t have more than 11 pounds to lose; I’m confident I can reach my previous low mark, and break through it.

I’ve made the decision to tighten up my weekend eating; this had gotten out of hand. I’m also avoiding empty carbs/calories, such as fruity drinks, even though they taste good and that’s what everyone else is drinking. I have to remember that my friends can drink these things with less consequence than I do.

I’m back to accounting for every little thing I put in my mouth, so I know exactly what I’m really eating. This is an exercise in discipline, and I generally do well with my eating when I do this. I’m also working on drinking half my weight in ounces of water each day, which I have to admit is my biggest challenge — at my weight, that is a lot of water.

Basically, what I’m doing is a return to a discipline of awareness, which I have pushed away for months. It takes discipline to lose weight when you face a number of metabolic issues; and if I’m not willing to analyze what I’m doing in depth, no one will.

It’s been several weeks since I’ve written in this blog. I admit I have been struggling with weight; my brain no longer wants to make the effort, especially after realizing that I am within just a couple pounds of the same weight I was at this time last year.

I know the answer, of course — don’t give up. Giving up only results in weight gain. So, I still keep enough on my eating plan to maintain, but I’m still carrying extra weight over and above my low, and after having received a steroid shot for pain management, that struggle is even tougher. My pain levels (from chronic arthritis) are much lower, which I greatly appreciate, but my appetite is through the roof.

Add to this — I am about to leave on vacation to an all-inclusive resort, which means unlimited food and drink. I am determined to enjoy my time while there… but the Monday after my return, I need to recommit myself to getting this weight off and actually following through with everything I know works. I haven’t been doing that. I’ve grown lax and have done my own fair share of thinking “this just isn’t fair”.

And it’s not fair that I have the issues I do when losing weight. I have to put in a colossal effort, and I know that my plight is misunderstood; even my closest friends have tried to convince me to do something easier than diet and exercise, but that’s the only thing that will lead to long-term success. I refuse to resort to methods that will not teach me how to live with a thinner, healthier body.

My target date for getting my head in the right place and giving this effort a fresh start is on the Monday after I return. I can do this.

This week, I was solidly back on my chosen eating plan. Did I lose? Just a tiny bit; and in a character building exercise, I actually gained weight at the beginning of the week. Talk about testing my patience! But at least I’m getting back on the right path.

True lifestyle changes occur when habits are changed, and I have many to change; someone once told me that it takes 21 days to truly form a consistent habit, and dropping even one of those days means you may have to start again from scratch. I don’t know if that’s true, but it makes sense; I think that’s how so many of us, when trying to lose weight, tend to slowly drift off course rather than jump off the weight loss wagon intentionally.

Choosing which habits to intentionally change is my next challenge, and my dog taught me a bit of a lesson in that regard; I may need to open myself up and really look at the habits I keep, because something I’m unaware of — something I’ve just learned to do (the wrong way, perhaps) — may be the key to my ultimate success.

Bonnie, asking for some lap time.

Yes, my dog.

Her name is Bonnie, and she’s a mini schnauzer we’ve had since she was a puppy. The last dog I had, although I loved her dearly, was a rescue dog with a set of built-in habits that never completely got changed, so when we brought Bonnie home, we very consciously dedicated ourselves to breeding good habits in her.

One was completely inadvertent. Instead of closing doors in the house to keep her out of specific rooms, we used portable sliding window screens; they stand about 15” high or so, and when they were in place, she made no attempt to go over or around them. (Maybe because she could see through them.) They weren’t always in place; we could just slide one across the doorway and she’d stop, and then watch us (sometimes sadly) through the screen. But she never challenged the screen; she accepted that as long as the screen was in place, she would just patiently wait until we stopped doing whatever we were doing. (At the time, my husband was recovering from knee surgery and having a young puppy at his ankles wasn’t necessarily a good thing.)

Bonnie has been full grown for several years, now. She weighs enough and is tall enough that if she really, really wanted to go through one of the screens, she could easily do it. She could hop over it or paw at it, and maybe push it out of the way. It’s rare that I have the screens up anymore; I really have no need, but if the screen does get put in place, Bonnie does what she’s been trained to do: wait patiently by the screen.

She’s also a great jumper, and bigger than our former dog, who was a bit of a problem child. She could jump up on a dining room chair and cruise whatever happened to be on the dining table. I learned this when I first adopted her; despite her 13 pounds and small stature, she jumped up on the table and ate 5 out of 6 heartworm pills — which ended up with a trip to the vet to pump her stomach. This was just the start of any number of antics with that dog.

And yet, at 20 pounds and much taller (and younger), Bonnie will jump up on the couch easily, or in our laps when we’re sitting outside, but it has never once occurred to her to scavenge the dinner table.

Is she a good dog? Yes, absolutely — when it comes to animals, I think part of their behavior is inbred, and the rest is taught. Bonnie is a lucky pup in both cases, but most of all, she’s in the habit of being good. Those habits are consistent.

Have I been as consistent as I could be with my chosen weight loss plan and journey? Nope. And I need to be.

It’s time to change some habits.

Last week, I made some new commitments to myself, in hopes that with renewed effort, I might revisit the low I hit last November within the next month or two; after all, my weight has drifted up as high as 17 pounds over that amount, and I haven’t had much luck in taming that beast. I admit my efforts have been halfhearted, and while I think it’s folly to hope for something to spur my brain into action, I got it anyway.

This morning, I am now 1.8 pounds above my low, and the lowest weight I’ve been since before Christmas.

To what do I owe this incredible success in quick and efficient weight loss? Not to renewed efforts, exercise, or laser focus, my friends. Nope.

Not an advisable diet plan.

I owe it all to a lovely bout of viral gastroenteritis.

You know… the stomach flu.

I made myself a lot of promises on Friday; about 1 am on Monday, those promises were dashed. I’ll save you the details, but anyone who’s had the stomach flu knows that any thought of diet or exercise is just foolishness. In a case of truly bad timing, my last meal before this commenced was an especially spicy chili verde.

It was Tuesday before I took hesitant nibbles of anything, and it occurred to me, then, that there might be a good side to this, after all. While Tuesday’s fare was off diet (saltines! More saltines!), I slid back into clean eating and recording everything that goes in my mouth. In short, this helped me get back on track with two items that needed to be checked off the list before I could have any success getting this weight back off.

While I would never recommend using the stomach flu as a dieting device, this was more about turning something negative, that could have derailed me just when I’d truly decided to dig deep again, into something that worked in my favor. Not only is it nice to see that number on the scale going downward, again, but my joints feel better and my clothes fit differently. I’m a couple steps closer to doing what I need to do to be successful.

Sometimes, opportunities for success come in the oddest of ways.

Please — I’m begging you — don’t give up on me.

I’m not talking to “you”, those who read this blog, but to me, that vision in the mirror.

Because that’s what I’ve been doing. I recognize all the signs. The subtle letting go of things, one by one, until one day, I realize I’m not really making the effort I once was, and I really don’t want to, because I’ve fallen into apathy.

I am that person, and I’m admitting it, here.

The last blog I wrote was on taking 100% responsibility for my life. I’ve done some soul-searching, but not enough to get my head fully in the right place.

Taking that responsibility means recognizing what I am no longer doing for myself. Not only have I stopped being disciplined in my weight loss methods, but I also have not been disciplined in other areas of my life that I know, without a doubt, are to my benefit and enjoyment.

This morning, I watched the videos I made during my journey. I knew, when I made them, that I would reach a point where I just simply deny and tuck under the rug all the things I’ve been working toward. I’ve made some big changes in my life, in the name of achieving long term goals and dreams; and now that those things are finally falling into place, I find myself facing them — not with joy, but with fear.

Fear always holds me back. Fear is the embodiment of being told I’m not good enough, so many years ago, and reacting by giving in to that devaluation.

I fear that I can’t do the things I set my sites on; so I short myself the effort and therefore, the disappointment of failure.

I fear the truth that I’m really not a good writer, so I don’t write.

I fear the pain of exercise, and the judgments people inevitably make of that fat woman lumbering into the gym, so I don’t go.

I fear the possibility that I may never be able to lose all the weight I need to lose, so I stop trying.

And that’s where I am, today, looking around and realizing how many things I’ve let go in the name of fear.

I’m not looking for cheerleaders, even though I appreciate it when people support my efforts.

I know that when I write, it’s not about who reads it or what they think of it; it’s about my need to tell a story, first and foremost. Editing takes care of the rest.

I know that when I walk into the gym — or anywhere else, that matter — there will always be those that judge me by my appearance, even if I achieve every single one of my health-related goals. People, by nature, judge. Will I let the judgment of people I don’t know or care about hold me back?

I know there’s the possibility that I may never be able to lose all the weight I need to lose — but that is never an excuse for not making the effort. Without the effort, I guarantee it will not happen. That’s the stark reality of the matter; this takes effort. Period.

I know the steps I need to take to make each of these things a reality — and it starts with not giving up on myself. It’s time to be brave, again; to step forward and take chances.

So here I am, friends; kick my head into the right place or give me encouragement, tell me your stories, inspire me to be better.

But whatever you do, please don’t give up on me.

While I’m still working to get the holiday surplus poundage off, I admit that I’m pretty irritated to have to lose the same pounds again… and again… and again.

Here I am, though, writing this blog, and I intend to keep it up until my brain is in the right place for success, because I know that’s what it takes. That’s the point of this blog; it’s not for you, my friend. It’s for me.

I’ve been giving some thought to success; not only in weight loss, but generally speaking, since I’ve recently gone through a career shift. Not to mention, there are just things going on in my life that have made me reevaluate my priorities; nothing does that quicker, I think, than having someone close to you with a terminal disease, and nearing the end of their life.

It occurred to me that one of the reasons I’ve stuck with the blog this time around, even though I haven’t always been gung-ho on my weight loss efforts, is because I am surrounded by people who are inspirations to me. I look at them, I look at the odds they face, and they unknowingly reinforce my dedication to getting this weight off and getting to a healthier place.

These heroes aren’t the sort of folks who beat their chests about their achievements; they quietly go about their ways, achieving awesomeness without the world cheering at their feet. They aren’t signing autographs, making endorsement deals, or dancing down a red carpet.

No, they’re the folks whose stories surround me, and encourage me, whether they’re aware of it or not. They’re the people who make the effort to improve their lives and situations, one small step — and maybe a large set-back or two — at a time.

They include the many people I know and have known for years, who ten years ago, never would have dreamed of running a marathon, or a half, or a 5K… or even around the block. And yet, today, they are runners.

They are the people who have made drastic lifestyle choices, and are learning to live with new bodies. Believe me, that’s no small feat; the work is hardly over when you reach that magic number on the scale. Although I don’t know that by my own experiences, I know it through the stories of friends who continue to fight each day for their health.

These are the people who make the effort instead of excuses. They are human, they are fallible, they occasionally trip and fall — but they persevere, because they’ve tapped into whatever wellspring of strength they need to succeed.

Chances are if you’re reading this… you might just be one of these people.

Thank you. Seeing you face your challenges on a daily basis makes me think I should be trying just a little bit harder than I am — so that one day, my own story will be counted among those who quietly go about their ways, and yet provide inspiration for someone who happens to need it.

Finally, the holiday season is over — and none too soon, for me. I confess: I have been a bad girl. The good news is that I’m back on track.

I haven’t posted to this blog in the last two weeks. I’m sure some of you have likely noticed. The first week, I posted a notice; the second, I didn’t.

The weekend before Christmas, we went out of town and spent an early holiday with my husband’s family. Among the gifts, I received a lovely Christmas virus of some sort — and it stuck with me through Christmas. I felt pretty horrible, but unfortunately, my appetite was unaffected, and when I’m sick, I don’t really care much about putting out an effort for food. I eat what’s easy and available, and around Christmas, none of it is good news for my thighs.

By the time I felt better, I was halfway to New Year’s Eve, and my brain convinced me I might as well do what the rest of the world does; wait until after New Year’s to get back on the wagon, which is exactly what I did.

Mind you, I think long term dieters need the occasional break — but this was the wrong way to do things. There was entirely too much risk involved; just saying “screw it, I’ll wait until next week” is a precarious path for me, because “next week” may turn into “next month” and then become totally fictional. Breaks should be planned, for exactly this reason. I’m glad that I got back on the wagon.

The bad side: I started the week off 17 pounds above my low, and I’m going to have to fight to get that weight back off. 5.6 pounds are already gone.

The good side: I felt *awful*.

Now, I know how that sounds — stupid! But it’s true.

One of the issues with being morbidly obese is that it’s insanely easy to ignore the scales and convince yourself that your weight really hasn’t changed all that much. (Nope, I didn’t step on the scale during my two week spree.) It’s one of the games morbidly obese people play with themselves; but we have to remember that we are NOT like people of normal weight.

Someone who is 20 pounds overweight, and doesn’t step on a scale, will notice weight gain a lot quicker than someone who is 100 or more pounds overweight. In larger sizes, the weight span between sizes is much larger, so as I put on weight over the holiday, my clothes didn’t suddenly grow tighter. I didn’t have to worry about a binding waistband or a tattling camel toe. At nearly 60 pounds down, I’m still wearing most of the same clothes I wore when I started dieting. So, really, I could have kept my eyes closed for a very long time and done a lot of destruction.

Except… I felt awful. I had immediate feedback to eating poorly.

It wasn’t just sickness, although that certainly contributed early on to feeling bad. No — it was water retention in my joints, blood sugar spikes and drops, the feeling of insatiable hunger that haunts me when I eat too many carbs, the inevitable IBS symptoms that start to return.

Plainly put, when I am on plan, even if I am not in an active weight loss phase, I feel better. My body can tell the difference, and it’s quick. It’s like the difference of running a car engine that’s been newly tuned and on good high grade gasoline, to one that’s been ignored and has a tank full of gas with water in it. On carbs, my body sputters, smokes, backfires, and runs horribly. 😉

So, although it’s only been a couple weeks, I’m glad to be back, and I feel stronger every day.

I admit I have struggled these last couple weeks; I have been dealing with a lot of emotional stuff, and while I wouldn’t call myself a stress eater at all, I could have done better than I have. Consequently, my weight is up, and with it, water retention.

I swear, water retention is my body’s way of punishing me. If I have too many carbs, those glycogen stores refill, and along with that comes excess water. For someone like me, with a lot of arthritis, water retention means pain. And pain, added in with emotional stress, puts my head in a bad place. I need to work through this, I know.

I admit that as I’ve seen the scale climb this past week, my head has started the old litany of why bother to diet? And I know, logically, that makes zero sense. Quitting when you’ve lost nearly 56 pounds, because you’re struggling for a few days, is the equivalent of turning a lit match into a forest fire. All I do by subverting my own efforts is create more pain for myself.

And that, I don’t need. I’ve made changes in my life, recently, to lessen my stress level; they’ve been good changes. Yes, there’s still stress; this past week, I’ve cared for a loved one after (minor) surgery, and one of my brothers is facing a challenge that will ultimately end his life far earlier than should ever be. I’ve struggled with grief, even though he’s still with us.

Yet, at the same time, my brother’s struggles are an inspiration to me. Just over a week ago, he had a tumor removed from his spine, and underwent a process to fortify his spine; screws, pins… the medical jargon is beyond me. The result is that he has to retrain his neural pathways to learn to walk, again. Metastasis from prostate cancer has also affected other regions of his spine, and he has hard decisions ahead of him about how he’ll handle the future; he has quality of life decisions to make for his remaining time with us. Will he be happy? Or simply a medical pincushion?

Regardless, he gets up every morning in rehab, leaves a wheelchair behind, and works on retraining his legs. Hopefully, perhaps this week, he’ll be home again. One small step at a time, he works on a goal in front of him — and he freely admits that despite everything on his plate, he is a happy man. He chooses to be a happy man.

Though he knows his time is short, he pushes forward and sets to accomplish what he can, anyway.

Who am I, without any such challenges, to even entertain the thought of not working hard to attain my own goals?

I have only a small setback. I have water retention and a few extra pounds to lose; this fluctuation has happened to me many a time in the past. It’s the nature of how my body works. In the grand scheme of things, this is nothing to obsess about, or even fear. I am not in a race against the clock. And this, I can do, without any sort of help or intervention. A small thing, really.

Sometimes, this battle is about keeping things in perspective — and not letting emotion drive you into a more stressful situation by making bad choices.

So with that, I’m resetting my goals to get my head back into the right place, to fully enjoy my moments of goodness, and to keep things in perspective. As long as I keep up the good fight, I will reach my goals; and while those goals carry their own complexities, they are, in essence, quite simple when compared with all the other challenges that we, as humans, might face.

While my brother continues to take one small step at a time toward his goals, so will I.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a related note, September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. Please ask the men in your life to get checked. My brother, who was diagnosed in 2005 and has been stage 4 since 2007, started feeling symptoms just a few months ago — long after the cancer metastasized to his liver and bones.

Caught early, prostate cancer can be beat, but so many of us convince ourselves that ugly diseases show symptoms, which isn’t always true. It is also not necessarily a disease of the aged. My brother turned 60 last month, and was 51 when he was diagnosed.

Prostate Cancer Foundation

53 Pounds of Beautiful Dog

Hooray! I’ve broken through to new territory, and am now 53.6 pounds down.

Thanks to several friends who are thoughtful enough to post articles, I’ve done more than average reading this week — not just on weight loss and the complications of obesity, but also about the psychology of allowing external forces to steer our decisions.

I think these two topics dovetail quite well. The first article attributed the idea that saturated fats are dangerous and that low fat eating is the way to health, to one very adamant scientist. While I’m not sure that’s true, I know the pervasive thinking for decades has been that the only safe and effective way to lose weight is to do so with a low fat diet.

Historically, I’ve never done well on low fat. Carbs trigger hunger for me, so it’s no wonder that the most I’ve ever been able to lose on low fat was 40 pounds. Believe me, I starved those pounds off, and I was absolutely miserable the entire time — every time. Before I tried a low carb diet (Atkins) eleven years ago, I had pretty much accepted the idea that I was just going to stay fat, because every diet I tried made me horribly miserable.

Then I tried Atkins, and lost not 40 pounds… but 140. I wasn’t miserable. In fact, I was pretty satisfied with how I ate.

Now, this isn’t an Atkins endorsement, although I think it’s an excellent plan. My point is more about how pervasive the diet industry is in putting peer pressure on people, whispering in their ears or yelling in their faces about there only being one effective way to lose weight — calories in, calories out — and that’s not true. At least for me.

In order to succeed, I had to be willing to try something that went against common beliefs, and stick to my guns, despite anyone else’s opinion on how I do things.

I think this is a huge failing for many people who attempt to lose weight. It’s a struggle, no matter what, and the moment someone says “I’m going on a diet!”, they usually have at least a dozen well-meaning friends trying to tell them how to do it. I’ve been there. I’m still there, despite having proven success with the methods I use.

You have to be willing to do two things: shut out those voices and do what your gut tells you is right, and be strong enough to accept that there’s no one simple answer that works for everyone. If that were true, we wouldn’t have the massive obesity rates we currently do.

I’m not knocking low fat diets, by the way. If they work for you, great! Do what works for you personally.

In a sea of confusing information regarding weight loss, and pressure from any number of sources to do things their way (because, according to them, that’s the only way you can possibly be healthy), it becomes immediately necessary to find a core strength that tides you through these assaults. It’s no wonder so many people throw their hands up in frustration; it’s easier to remain in place and not make the effort than to commit to making the effort and endure the immediate attack of well-meaning individuals.

This is one of the reasons why, for many of my past diet efforts, I just quietly went on a diet and said nothing to anyone about it. I didn’t need to have varying opinions on what I was doing; it was (and is) a personal journey. While I was quite vocal about my intentions from the start, this time, I still had friends who tried, in their own ways, to steer me toward their methods. I still had to endure an onslaught of opinions. And while I love those people for caring about me, I still have to make sure that what I’m doing is good for me.

I encourage people to read the article “Taming the Mammoth: Why You Should Stop Caring What Other People Think”. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this sort of thinking diagrammed so well, and if you are looking for ways to solidify your own thinking so you’ll be more successful in your efforts, you may find some suggestions here.

It’s been my experience that the only way to truly succeed is to be firm in your own convictions and goals. If your faith in yourself is easily shattered by the opinions of others, whether it’s about your dietary methods or about your progress, you must learn to shut out those voices. I’m nearly a year into this effort; I’ve been on diets for much longer than a year, and sticking with them requires that determination above all else.

Be strong for yourself.