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Two Week Report

Apr19

Two weeks!  I’ve been working my program for two weeks, now.  I’m happy to report that it’s been two successful weeks.

There are a few areas where I could stand to improve; for instance, drinking enough water.  I go by the 1/2 your weight method; drink half your weight in ounces each day.  I weighed in at 334, so that means 167 ounces a day.  That’s well over a gallon.   I don’t think I’ve hit that magic number, yet, although I do manage to get close to a gallon in on most days.  It’s just something I need to work up to.

Overall, though, I’ve done well.  I’ve been using MyFitnessPal to track my food and exercise; I like that it has a phone app for my Blackberry; it’s convenient for me to track my food when on the road.  I have gotten in the groove with food and exercise, and things are getting easier for me.  I haven’t had any issues at all with cravings, to this point.

I am glad that I’m choosing to focus on my body’s reactions rather than the scale.  So far, it’s helping me to take a different look at my own progress.

Changes within my own body, just two weeks in, have been very encouraging.  While I love that my clothes are starting to fit better, more important things are happening.  Such as:

  • Nearly daily issues with IBS have nearly disappeared.  I’m not nearly as concerned as I was about having to leave the house in the morning and possibly being out of control.
  • I was experiencing some heart palpitations; I have a very mild arrhythmia.  (I understand this is pretty common among women.)  The palpitations have severely decreased in volume.  While I’m not about to proclaim that they’re gone yet, I haven’t experienced one in probably close to a week.
  • I was experiencing hip pain and discomfort when having to sit on hard surfaces for long periods of time.  That has decreased quite a bit.
  • I have plantar fasciitis in my left heel; that is improving.

For two weeks’ investment, I think I’ve gotten a lot in the bargain.  I hope that reminding myself about these positive changes will help keep me on course when the inevitable mental challenges come.

I also have some added incentive, mentally speaking.  While he will probably never know about the particulars of this journey, I think what really motivated me to start improving my life was my oldest brother, who is currently fighting cancer.  He’s seven years older than me.  We are all hoping for the best, and that’s my fondest hope; but his battle reminds me that I’m wasting my time being unhappy in this body and just letting the moments drift away.  If I don’t have to live like this, I should do everything within my power to change it.

The Pants Theory

Apr16

I believe I wrote here previously that instead of weighing in, I’m using pants as an indicator. When I started last Monday (last week), my size 26 jeans were tight. I wore the smaller of the two pair I have on Wednesday, and I’m happy to report that they are more comfortable, so there’s progress.

I’ve decided on my first goal pants.  They are also a size 26, and by the same manufacturer of the two pairs of jeans I own, except they’re capris.  Despite being the same size from the same manufacturer, guess what?  They look to fit a full size smaller than their longer cousins.  Odd, but it does give me a starting target for a pair of pants to fit into.  At this point, they barely go over my hips, and there’s plenty of flab blocking any possible buttoning and zipping action.  Perfect.  I estimate that I will have to lose roughly 20-25 pounds to fit into them.

I plan to try them on every Friday until they fit, and at that point, I’ll weigh.

Otherwise, I’m doing well.  I’ve done well with eating as well as exercise.  I don’t feel like I’m faking it anymore.  I’m finding my groove.

 

Faking it until you make it.

Apr11

Yesterday completed one week on low carb for me.  So far?  So good. I have a few observations, now that the first week is in the history books.

My intention was to do some carb cycling, because that’s what worked for me previously, but I didn’t really do it all that well over the weekend.  I didn’t eat enough carbs, believe it or not.  In fact, when I used to do this, Monday was a hungry day for me.  Today?  I didn’t eat lunch.  I wasn’t hungry.  I’ll be low on all of my food requirements today.  I just ate dinner, and I really don’t have any desire to eat anymore.  That’s one of the reasons I like low carb: appetite suppression, for the win!

So far, it’s been easy to do.  I need some variety for my breakfasts, but this is a minor thing.  I need to get started on exercise for this week, and may put some time in late this evening.  I really haven’t had any major challenges, except in the support department; more on that in a moment.

I am already feeling better.  One of the things I didn’t write down in my “How I Feel” post a few days ago was heart palpitations; I get them on occasion, but for the last week, I think I’ve experienced it once.  Excellent.  Water retention is going away, which means my joints feel better.  Yesterday, I was having an “I feel fat” day, which I found frustrating, but it served more to keep me on task than to derail me.  The truth is, everyone has “I feel fat” days.  Feeling fat should be more of an incentive to stick with the program than to discard it, right?

As for faking it until you make it, which is what I stated when I started last week, I’m starting to find my motivation.  I really want to be successful. That’s easy to say after a week’s time, but I feel like I’m looking forward to this more than just going through the motions.  That’s probably the best thing I can say about this week: getting motivated by how I feel is a LOT better than getting motivated because of a good weigh-in.  Good weigh-ins motivate me, but bad ones de-motivate me.  That’s just the simple truth of it.  Until I know my head is solidly in the right place and not likely to be shaken by a bad weigh-in, there will be no weigh-ins.

The downside, this week?  It’s that “starter’s anxiety”.  People know I’m on low carb.  It’s not like I wore a sign or anything, but putting it out there comes with some risks, and some annoyances.  First was my husband, who may mean well by wanting to make this a team effort, but his goals and needs are far different from mine; and if I have to listen to him report in about how he lost weight despite snarfing milk duds, it’s going to be a de-motivator.

Another is the female group dynamic that includes my friends discussing their weight loss efforts.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m for support, but I really don’t enjoy discussing what my food plan is while I’m eating.  I want my social time to be about sharing interests with friends; not about weight loss details.  Maybe it’s because weight loss is a much bigger issue for me than for them.  No pun intended.  I think it goes back to identifiers; I don’t want to be identified by being the fattest person in the room, and as an extension, I also don’t want to be identified as the fattest person in the room who’s on a diet, now, bless her soul, let’s be supportive. In fact, I’d just prefer that the eating and exercise plan I’m on just be part of my life, not the whole thing.

When I successfully lost weight, before, people would ask me how much I lost every single time they saw me.  I’ve already had to tell one well-meaning friend that I have no idea what I’ve lost, because I’m not doing weigh-ins just yet.  I got a slight WTF? look, like I must be out of my mind.  Maybe I am.  I’m just trying to find what’s gonna work for me.

Despite those little bumps in the road, things are going well.  I bought a couple of tank tops the other day; I look horrible in tanks, but I will be comfortable in the southern heat.  I also bought some capris that are the same size and make as some jeans that I have, that are a little tight but wearable; wouldn’t you know it?  They don’t fit, yet, but they’re larger than a full size down, so I have something that will be a good indicator of loss to me.

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.

 

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.

Week 14: Predictability

Sep10

The scale wasn’t good to me this week.  A four pound gain, which I can tell by my joints is water weight; I didn’t eat in excess enough to have put on four real pounds.

Here’s the thing, though, and for someone like me, it’s good: I know why I gained the weight.  I can look at what I didn’t do right this week, and totally understand where that weight came from.  It’s cause and effect, and quite often, in the process of weight loss, people will hit a stall or a gain, and not understand why.  I understand, and that counts for something; that also means I can change what I’m doing and be fairly sure of the results.

This week, as stated in my last post, I had 3 up days instead of 2; a decision I consciously made.  I finished a round of knee injections, which took me out of exercise for the end of the week.  And finally, I haven’t been getting in the amount of fluid that I know I need in order to lose weight; as a result, my body is hanging on to water.  Changing these things next week should reverse things for me.

This week, I really don’t have much more to add than that; I’m still pumped about my progress, and I know it will continue. I have some exercise changes coming up, as well.

Week 13: 20% Down!

Sep7

I'm losing my pot. 28.5 pounds of it.

You’d think I had a crappy week last week, considering that I normally update my blog on Fridays; that’s my weigh-in day.  But no.  I was gone for the day last Friday, and then dove headlong into the long Labor Day weekend, so I wasn’t able to share my good news until today.

I’ve met my second weight goal. I’m 20% of the way!

I was thrilled last week to see 283.5 on the scale; my weight goal was at 284 pounds.  That’s a total loss of 28.5; each 14 pounds is another 10% toward my goal of losing 140 pounds.  My next weight goal is 270, which I hope to achieve around my birthday, in late October.

(Yes, that’s 28.5 pounds of marijuana pictured; I’m so tired of using fish or small children to illustrate my weight loss.  So why not pot?  Isn’t that what I’m losing, too? 😉 )

I made the willing choice to extend my normal 2 day carb and calorie up days to 3 days.  While I didn’t go just flat out overboard, I also think that it was probably enough to offset a weight loss for this coming Friday, but if some more weight finds its way off of me, I’m certainly not going to complain!

I will add that I reached an exercise breakthrough point this morning that made me quite happy.  Usually, when I start/restart/rerererererestart exercise, I have to fake it until I make it; I have to push myself to keep going until I reach that magical point where I find myself smiling during exercise.  I reached that point this morning.  It accompanied a nice little adrenaline rush.

This absolutely delights me, because it’s when I reach this point that I’m most likely to successfully continue.  I increased my total time this morning, which I planned before exercising; it was just a pleasant coincidence.  Next week, I will slowly start incorporating strength training back into my routine.  I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say about that when the time comes. 😀

Week 12: Feeling Good

Aug27

26 pounds of butter = 104 sticks!

After last week’s fairly large loss, and being sick, I thought I might see a bounce this week.  Not so.  Another two pounds off!  That brings me to 26.5 pounds down, and just 1.5 pounds away from my next goal.

I’m feeling good, too.  I haven’t resumed exercise, yet, but plan on resuming next week.  I’m doing well with food and with fluid intake, and getting good sleep.

A couple pairs of shorts that I bought several weeks back, and were snug, are now fitting perfectly.  My shirts are getting looser.  I’m moving easier, which is the biggest payoff of losing weight.

I’m also feeling more confident about seeing this through, and that’s major.  When I lost a ton of weight before, I got to a point where I’d buy clothes that were in a smaller size, and I knew for sure that I would lose enough weight that they would fit.  There was no doubt in my mind.  The last few efforts I’ve made, which have been small and sort of half-hearted, I didn’t have that confidence.  I found myself in the same frame of mind several weeks back; I was hesitant to buy something that was snug, because I just wasn’t sure the weight would come off.  I’ve (thankfully) proved that part of my brain wrong.

Thanks to those of you who are following me along in this effort.  Your support means a lot.