Bad me — no post on Monday, so I’m catching up today. A two-fer!

My goal pants and shirt fit pretty much the same as they did last week. That’s okay; my other clothes feel looser than they have been since the holidays.  Between last week and this, I’m feeling strong again.  I worked out 5 times last week and met my goal (and a promise to myself); I have one more workout this week.  I’ve been eating right and meeting my other promises, as well.

Just today, I was speaking with a friend about how I look at my clothes, these days; I see them as temporary.  I’ll enjoy wearing them, but they won’t be around for long. The jeans I’m wearing today are a pair that were my goal jeans several months ago, and they’re now my “comfy” jeans; in other words, they’ve got plenty of room in them. They could stand to be hemmed, but I’m not going to bother.  In a few months, they won’t fit any longer. They’ll be too big, and I will have moved on to other pairs.

That also helps me to remember that at one point, I couldn’t get my now-comfy jeans to button and zip. It’s only a matter of time (and perseverance!) before the pair of goal pants I’m currently working on become that way, too. I’m confident, now, that this will happen.

I’m nearing a year on plan. No, I haven’t dropped buckets of weight, but I’ve lost enough that I feel a lot better about myself than when I started.  If I hadn’t made the effort, where would I be?  So why not make the effort?

This is the first time in two weeks that I’ve tried on my goal pants.  They fit pretty much the same as they did two weeks ago.  I don’t currently have a goal shirt. I’m still thinking on that one.

While there appears to be no change, this is good.  In the two weeks since I’ve tried them on, there’s been both Christmas and New Year’s. I took extended up days on both holidays.  While I paid for it with bloat early in the week after both weekends, it appears that if I had a gain, it was small enough to not make a significant difference in the fit of my goal jeans.I haven’t had a loss, either, but I’m glad to come out on the other side of the holidays without an apparent gain, and without the urge to chuck the whole process.  Instead, I’m about nine months ahead of all the people that resolved to lose weight and get fit for the new year. 😉

Currently, the size 22 black Rider jeans fit tight. Two weeks ago, I was able to do the lay-down-suck-in-button-and-zip thing.  That’s how this morning was, as well.  Trust me — I’m not sure I could have done it if there was another single ounce of fat somewhere below my waist.  Still, it took about the same amount of effort as the last time.

Speaking of nine months… if I’d gotten pregnant on the day I started this diet, I’d be having labor pains just about now. Ha!  I’m glad to be nine months down the road and still working on losing and getting fit.

First things, first: I didn’t post at all last week, and hence the title.

The holidays sucked me down into the dark abyss, both time-wise and, unfortunately, diet-wise.  I didn’t go totally off my plan, but I made more concessions and indulged more than I originally planned.  For that reason, I didn’t try on goal pants last week at all.  This week, I can feel the bloat.  Any time I overeat on carbs, I carry water weight in addition to whatever other damage an overindulgence may have caused.

I’m keeping things honest with myself… I could have behaved much better during the holidays.  I’m pretty sure I didn’t lose anything; but I’m also relatively sure I didn’t gain anything, either.  Since I have stayed off the scale, my only indicators are how my clothes fit, and before this last weekend’s food frolic, my clothes were fitting loosely.  In fact, I did try on my goal shirt, and I consider it a fit, now.  So that’s one plus for the holidays.

Another plus is that as of this morning, I’m back to routine. My goals for the next few weeks are to work out five times a week and to return to a 5/2 carb and calorie rotation.  The last couple weeks, I have allowed myself 4 day long up-days.  I’m nearly 9 months into this effort, and while the holidays are always a challenge (on a lot of different levels!), I’m thrilled to be on the other side.  I missed behaving.  That’s probably the best news there is; I actually craved getting back to a decent eating and exercise routine.

My loss continues!  The black super-tight goal pants can now be buttoned and zipped.  Granted, it takes laying down on the bed and compressing important body organs, but I managed to do it.  AND stand up in them.  Yay!

Christmas is a couple of days away.  My daughter is driving in today, and has volunteered to make dinner, although I’m not sure if it’s tonight or tomorrow.  If tonight, my carb/calorie up cycle will extend into three days.  I’m spending a lot of time going back and forth about whether that’s the right thing to do, but that’s yet another mental game I play with myself.  I know it’s a good thing that I’m conscientious about how I spend those up-cycle days, but in the long run, one day isn’t going to make much of a difference.

I plan on having a few treats on Christmas.  I feel confident enough now that I know, with certainty, that when Monday comes, I’ll actually be grateful to go to the lower limit of carbs and calories, again.  I have to say that’s a really good feeling; while I have imperfect days, I don’t flog myself over them.  I just go on. I don’t feel denied, because on the weekends, I will allow myself small portions of things that I’ve been thinking about.  For instance, I love buttered popcorn; I have a box of microwave popcorn sitting in the kitchen cabinet, bought when I was thinking about it, but guess what?  It’s been sitting up there for a month, unopened.  I know, when I want it some weekend, it’ll be there.

I’ve also changed my attitude about how I eat on my up-cycle days.  Last week, we took my mother-in-law and brother-in-law out for lunch at a buffet place.  There was plenty of food to choose from; and pretty much all of it was bland, dried out,  and lukewarm.  That bothered me; I look at food and beverages, now, like spending money.   I don’t eat nearly as much, now, before I’m full, and if I’m going to invest carbs and calories, I want what I eat to be worth it. That also includes empty eating around the holidays, which so many of us do and then regret on January 2nd.

When January 2nd comes, and the inevitable throng of resolutionists crowd my gym, I’m happy to say that I won’t be one of those people who is dragging myself in and regretting what I ate over the last few weeks.  I’ll be months ahead of that with no regrets.

On another note, I have to also add that I think the addition of T3 (Cytomel) to my thyroid medication (in addition to Synthroid) has made a metabolic difference.  I think the weight is coming off easier.

Here’s the caution, though: I’m not relying on T3 to do the work for me.  You can’t just rely on any thyroid medication to suddenly make weight loss easy-peasy.  Instead, I believe what it’s done for me is twofold: first, it’s perking me up a bit.  Before, I had afternoon crashes; I’d feel overwhelmingly tired.  And when I forget to take my afternoon dose, I still feel that way.  But when I take the medication as prescribed, I don’t get that afternoon dip.  Because of that, I’m more active during the day, and even if that means that I’m burning just slightly more fat, that’s an advantage that will add up.  Secondly, I think it helps my exercise levels; I feel like I get more out of a workout, and when that happens, I probably am putting in more effort, which means more calorie/fat burn.

I’m putting in the effort, and adding the Cytomel is an extra little boost.  If I’m not putting in the effort, the meds aren’t going to help.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

So here I am, at Week 35!

It occurred to me during my workout, today, that this is the second longest effort I’ve ever made toward weight loss, and probably also the second highest amount of weight, too.

It was 8 months yesterday since starting, again.  Even if I still consider my weight loss to be at 44 pounds (don’t know if there’s more or not, since it’s been a few weeks), I think the most recent big weight loss I had was a few years ago, when I did an online “Biggest Loser” sort of competition with online friends; that lasted 6 months, and I think I lost about the same amount of weight.

Before that, it was The Big Effort.  140.5 pounds, and several years in the process before my weight really started increasing in a bad way. That started in June, 2003.

At this point in my efforts, I feel a lot better about them now than I did, then.  I’m in a much better mental place than I was when I was trying back then; at 44 pounds down, I still wasn’t sure what I could accomplish, since I was also in the worst physical shape of my life.  Even at 317 pounds and several years older, this time, I started off with a better physical ability and mental attitude.

Back then, I wasn’t sure what I could accomplish, and while I was pretty high on life by the time I’d dropped 80 or so pounds, I was still pretty unsure around that 40 pound mark.  I had no idea what my body was capable of.  I worried that I’d hurt myself, and with good cause.

Now, I have a pretty good idea what I’m capable of doing, and how to get there.  Before, I was just taking one step forward as I could; these days, I know what path I want to follow.  I know what my body can do.  I know how it responds.  Frankly, I’m in a lot better physical shape at 290 and 50 years old than I was at 290 and 42 years old; back then, I was walking around my yard and adding a couple minutes to my total time when I could.  This morning, I did a solid hour of water jogging to dance music in the pool.

I have gone too far, now, to even consider going backward.  Although I know I will occasionally flounder and doubt, I think that’s okay, as long as I remind myself that the solution to doubt isn’t to gain the weight back; that is never, ever a solution to anything.