Archives

Week 11: Bodies Are Fickle

Aug20

24.5 pounds of meat

First things, first: since last week, I’ve had a 4.5 pound loss, which carried away the half a pound that made an appearance last week, and four of its fat friends.  Off to the right: 24.5 pounds of rib meat, showing my total loss.

Last week, as in Week 10, was a perfect week; I did everything right — and I mean everything.  Despite that, the evil scales showed a gain.  I knew it would come off, but it was also a reminder that sometimes doing everything right doesn’t have an immediate payoff.  So often, some of the more hardheaded diet gurus will insist that everything comes down to calories in, calories out; and if you haven’t lost during one particular week, it’s because your incoming calories exceeded what your body burned.  (Anyone notice how most of those who insist on this theology don’t have a uterus?)

While I’m a believer in science, and have been successful in the past by approaching weight loss as a scientific method, there are still some things that don’t come with easy explanations.  That would account for this week, during which I did pretty much everything wrong, or at least not according to plan.

Since last Friday, I’ve been sick with some sort of evil Mad Cow Disease.  It’s been an aggressive upper respiratory infection that has kept me drugged up and not functioning at all for almost a solid week.  During that week, I didn’t drink as much water as I should have; not even close.  My food intake was all “legal” foods, but far below where my calories should be for each day.  I didn’t exercise.  In fact, I barely moved.

I had made up my mind that this week’s weigh-in would be a loss, because *scientifically speaking*, the body often retains water as a healing mechanism.  I had convinced myself to be happy with whatever the scale said.  And just when I thought I had things pretty much figured out, I lost weight.

Who knows why, for sure.  Bodies are fickle things.  It could have been that just being sick was enough of a break in my regimen that it startled my body into giving up weight.  Or it could be that the decongestant I took has a diuretic effect.  Who knows, but I’ll take the loss.

The lesson: sometimes what you’ve done weeks ago comes into play when you least expect it.  It’s worth sticking to your plan.

Week 10: Body Changes

Aug13

Well, fried crap.  This last week has proven that you can do everything — and I mean everything — perfectly, and still see mixed results.  I’ve put on 1/2 pound since last week’s weigh-in.  I’m not as bummed about it as I was a couple weeks ago; I know, with no doubts, that this past week has been perfect in every way, as far as my own effort goes.  It’s my body, deciding to hang on to water; the last couple weeks have brought some menstrual gymnastics that have played havoc, and I’m blaming them. Temperatures in excess of 100 degrees outside probably have also played a part in water retention.  I feel like I’m holding quite a bit, even though I only need to lose 1 pound to be in new loss territory, so I’ve probably been losing mass for a few weeks.

At this point, because I believe there are things going on in my body that are resulting in gains rather than losses, I’m going to stay with my current level of carbs, calories, exercise, and water intake.  On one hand, I’d really love to finally have a big whoosh! and see the results on the scale; but on the other hand, I’m not going to let that scale rule my life.

I can tell a difference in my clothing.  A pair of blue jean shorts I bought a few weeks ago are getting noticeably looser, despite hanging onto water.  I now have a couple of old shorts that I’ve survived the last two summers in, that I may burn when I reach my next weight goal; those things are awful!  I never want to see them again!

I also went to the doctor for annual stuff this last week.  My blood pressure was 136/90, which for me, is on the high side.  I will be back in for a follow-up in a couple weeks, to discuss the results of blood tests, to I’m hoping that it’ll have come down by then.

Yeah, it’s a boring post, this week — I’m posting mostly for accountability.

Week 9: Sticking It Out

Aug6

Be happy with me!  I not only lost the 6 pounds of water that I gained, but another 1.5 pounds went with it.  I really didn’t figure I’d show a loss this week, but I’m happy that I did.  I’m happier, still, that the water weight is gone, because for me, it causes joint pain.

20.5 pounds of turkey!

In honor of the loss this week, it’s the return of “things that weigh what I’ve lost”; introducing a 20.5 pound turkey.  On one hand, I’m glad to be able to post a new pic of equivalent weight loss, but on the other hand, it’s become quite a challenge to find a pic of something that isn’t a fish or a baby.  I’m getting tired of the fish photos, and at 48, I don’t even want to think about making comparisons using baby pics.  No!

This last week was all about sticking it out.  Even though all evidence was to the contrary, seeing the number on the scale go up was disheartening.  I knew it was water.  I knew what I had to do to get rid of it; drink more water.  If you don’t already know this, when the body retains water, it’s usually doing so because it’s in a reserve mode.  Drinking more water actually gets your body to release what it’s retaining.

I have been wishy washy about getting enough water.  This week, I made sure I drank at least a gallon daily, and recorded each glass as I drank it, so I could keep up.  (Let me add that I do NOT recommend that everyone go out and drink a gallon of water, daily; that just happens to be what my body needs to release water.)

It’s about diligence and sticking it out when things get a bit tough.  Even 9 weeks in, it would be very easy for me to talk myself out of my successes to this point, including making sure that I do my exercise.  The little voices in my head tell me that I don’t really have to do it today, or it’s not helping me — look at the scale, etc.  I think it’s still in part because I know that 20 pounds isn’t a recognizable loss for me, yet, and that evil voice is reminding me that I can still safely bail without anyone saying “hey! How’s the weight loss going?”  That’s a voice based in failure; one that assumes that I’m not going to be successful, again, so back out now before I humiliate myself.

That is a huge thing when you are morbidly obese.  People hope you will lose weight, and when you fail at it, they see it as a character flaw.  In anyone else, it might not be a big deal, but I still think the majority of people who have had either small weight problems, or none at all, think that the morbidly obese got in that position by secretly cramming their mouths full of Twinkies and doughnuts.  That might be someone’s reality, but it isn’t mine; yet, it’s as if I can feel the judgment of those who either don’t know me, or even those that do.  So, recognizing that voice that says “back out before you fail” means acknowledging those feelings and dealing with them.

I have often been defined by my weight.  If I wasn’t one of the biggest people in the room, then I was that woman that had lost an incredible amount of weight.  When you lose a bunch, it’s easy to let yourself be defined as that person who has lost so much weight; people hear about you, they ask how you did it, you become a mini celebrity in your own right.  (One of my friends recently has lost a great deal of weight, looks terrific, and I bet she knows that I’m talking about!)  But even then, it can be frustrating to make that huge journey toward a healthy weight and still be defined by your weight.

I’ve jumped that 20 pound mental hurdle that I wrote about a few weeks back.  Now, it’s time to keep sticking it out and working toward my next goal, and tell those little deceiving voices to go to hell.

Week 7 Weigh-In: Speed Bumps

Jul23

I’ll get this over with, quickly: I saw a 3 pound gain this week.  Considering the mental sabotage I dealt with earlier in the week, I did expect either no loss or a slight gain, but not 3 pounds.  It’s another mental thing I’m having to deal with: I can easily become very scale dependent and get hung up on those numbers.  I was hoping that I might break that 20 pound number this week, but that will come in time.

Instead, I’m listening to my body.  I have made some good changes this week, but they haven’t had time to benefit me, yet.  The big one is adding exercise back in; for now, I will be water jogging three times a week. As of this morning, I’ve done two of three sessions for the week, and the last session will be later today.  I also switched what I was eating for breakfast; partly because I was getting bored with what I was eating, and having to cook breakfast was getting on my nerves and making me eat later than I should, but also because I haven’t been getting enough fiber.  That started yesterday.

My body is telling me that I’m currently holding water.  I can feel it in my joints; even my fingers are stiff.  My body can pull up to 15 pounds of water weight at any given time, so carrying 3-5 isn’t major for me.  I didn’t drink water like I should have this past week, so I plan to be more diligent overall this next week.

I am also not going to flog myself by changing my total loss shown.  If for some reason this weight doesn’t come off next week and take a couple extra pounds with it, I’ll reconsider.

Week 5 Weigh-in: Being Honest

Jul7

This is the first weigh-in that has been flat for me; no loss, no gain.  Sooner or later, it was bound to happen, but this time around, I was able to predict the probability that my loss would be compromised by making a food choice on a holiday weekend.

Usually, I will increase carbs on Saturday and Sunday to a moderate amount, and then decrease again on Monday.  Well, Monday came, and I decided to make it a three day instead of a two day.  I knew, at the time, that the down side might be no measurable loss on the scale this week.  I wasn’t in denial; I knew the probable consequences of my actions before deciding to take them.

There was a time, years ago, when I would have scarfed down a forbidden food and then hoped it wouldn’t show up on the scale.  And because it was some dark secret, more crept in, and I would eventually resent my diet plan for denying me things I loved.  Now, that’s not the case; I changed my thinking to realize that there are no forbidden foods.  There’s a big difference, mentally, between “I can’t have that” and “I choose not to have that”.  Denying yourself is punishment, and sooner or later, that can break the most determined person.  Choosing not to have that means you have the power to make that choice, and you understand the consequences of the choice, good or bad.

Gosh, after all that, you’d think I sucked down a cheesecake by myself.  😀  Nah, it was just a matter of having an extra day in the 50-100 carb range instead of 20 or under.  I still recorded what I ate.  I still evaluated it.  I think, where I and others can run into problems, is when I might make the choice to not accurately record something, so the numbers still look right at the end of the day.  How dumb is that, really?  If losing weight were as simple as only recording a set number of calories/carbs/fat/whatever a day, no matter what you eat, then trust me, I would make an accountant’s head spin.  No matter what numbers I come up with, my body works on its own internal calculator, and it’s up to me to figure out how that calculator is working.

Things I could have done better this week: Water intake, and staying true to my eating plan so I can accurately predict changes when necessary.

Week 4 Weigh-In, and Einstein

Jun30

Today was my Week 4 weigh-in, and I’m happy to announce that I lost another 2 pounds, which brings me to a total of 16 pounds down.  Just in case you need a visualization, the lovely striper in the photo weights 16 pounds.

16 pounds of FISH!

I like having visual reminders of how much of me has dissolved into nothingness, so as long as I remember it, I plan on showing the occasional equivalent.

I was sharing with some friends, just this morning, that I have always believed in the Law of Conservation of Energy, which in part holds that energy holds constant over time and cannot be created or destroyed.  Einstein’s Theory of Relativity said that energy equals mass.

So.  I’ve lost 16 pounds.  Where did it go?  I used to maintain that I was overweight enough that I took up the mass that 45 other woman let go of.  It has to go somewhere.  It must have floated through the universe and attached itself to my ass.  Not that I’m totally against the universe bringing me good stuff, but let that fat drift somewhere else and attach its barnacle-like self to someone who needs it.  Please.

Having lost 2 pounds this past week, a number of volunteers stepped forward to profess that they had found my 2 pounds attached to their posteriors.  Friends, mass cannot be created or destroyed; it only changes form, so I cannot be responsible, mathematically, for releasing two pounds from my body and having it turn into ten pounds cumulatively on several other people.  😉

The last week has been a good one; once again, I need to improve on drinking enough fluid each day.  It really does make a difference.  How else do you think fat gets out of your body?  It has to be released somehow, and this is one of the ways it goes out.

On a final note, I have decided to set my goal at 20% of my total goal met, which means I will meet that goal when I lose a total of 28 pounds, or the total weight of 284 (or below).  I’d like to lose a total of 140 pounds, so each 14 pounds will mark another 10% gone.  I expect to meet my next goal on or before Week 10.

Week 1: A Success!

Jun9

I’ve completed one week, for a total loss of 8.5 pounds.  Granted, a good portion of that is water weight, but even water weight is still weight, and I’m glad to have it off.  I’m also a lot closer to my first goal than I thought I would be; my first goal is to get under 300 pounds, and I had set an initial one month time period in order to do that.  Hallelujah!

I did go through some trials during the first week.  By my own error, I had scheduled  and bought tickets for an event on Thursday night, the second day of being back on plan; the tickets were for a tasting event for a number of restaurants.  I wasn’t able to entirely stay low carb, because there just wasn’t that much selection.  I did, at least, keep my food intake reasonable.  Other than that, my only real challenges were that I was hungry for the first few days, which I expected, and that I needed to be more mindful of drinking water.

I use FitDay to record my meals.  I fixed the water problem by adding water as part of my meal entry, and updating it as I drank.  Yesterday, I made it to 144 ounces, and was sloshing.  I’ve always gone by the rule of drinking half as much of my weight, in ounces.  Right now, I weigh 302.5 (as of this morning), and so my target for drinking water is approximately 150 ounces.

Over the past few days, I have been working on cleaning out the drawers in my bedroom.  I have a dresser and chest of drawers; I’ve done fairly well at keeping the dresser filled with clothes that fit, so it wasn’t much of an effort to go through the drawers, since most of the changes were seasonal.  My chest of drawers, however, was another matter entirely.  Just about everything I pulled out of there was in size 16, 18, and one case, size 14.  I am currently wearing size 26 in most things.

It was only 2-3 years ago that I was wearing these clothes items; and I love them.  I look forward to wearing them, again; I’d forgotten how many of them I really liked, and that I missed wearing. It also reminded me of how fit and how good I felt in that size, even though there are many who would still consider size 16 to be huge.  Not me.  Size 16 was reason to rejoice; I was officially out of plus size clothing.  Now I’m on the upper side of plus size clothing, again. I guess the good news is that this time, as I lose weight, I have every size in between and won’t need to go clothes shopping. 😉

The lowest weight I managed to get to in recent years was 197.5; that was roughly 4 years ago.  I managed to maintain but not lose, and got stuck in the plateau to end all plateaus.  Still, I looked at myself critically, and while most of the time I felt pretty good about how I was doing, there was still a part of me that screamed “not good enough!” when I’d look in the mirror.  How absolutely silly of me.

This time around, I want to love myself more.  I want it to be a much more positive experience.  I want to feel good about myself every step of the way.  I think it’s automatically assumed that the moment you start losing weight, you should start flogging yourself for being a fatty, and for ever letting yourself get to the point where you reached out in desperation for any method that would work.  While I agree that your head must be in the right place to be successful, and sometimes that means bottoming out, I also think that we’re being unfair to ourselves if we look at ourselves in disgust.  We are all wonderful creations in progress.

During the next week, I’ll start adding exercise back in.

By the way, if you’re reading this, and you happen to keep your own weight loss blog (or whatever), I’d be happy to link to it.  Just let me know.

In the beginning…

Jun2

Today, June 2, 2010, is my restart day.

I started off today by dreading my weigh-in.  Naturally.  I knew it wouldn’t be good news.  When I finally got myself down to the gym to weigh, though, I was surprised; the number wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  After all, I haven’t been a very good girl, lately.  I’ll be sharing that number, as well as my other stats, in another post.

In this post, I’m laying out how I’m approaching this journey.

Having already lost 140 pounds once, I learned some valuable information from that experience.  Here are some of the things I learned, and what I will take to heart this time, which I am determined to make my last time.

Acceptance.

I have to accept where I’m at, right now, right at this moment.  My current situation, whether it’s today or a year from now, was a result of my past, but my past keeps happening at every moment, and I am capable of changing.  What I am, today, is not what I am capable of being ten minutes from now, ten months, ten years.  Accepting myself and doing my best to remain objective will do me more good than bitching and carrying on about how fat I am.  That solves nothing, and just makes me feel bad.

Diligence.

Habits are formed by repetition.  I must be diligent about each day, about taking the care to do it right, and in the long run, diligence will show results, whether it’s in feeling better, a loss on the scale, the ability to walk further, the ability to walk away from something unhealthy.  Diligence creates strength, and the stronger I am, the more likely I am to succeed.

Diligence also means planning and record keeping.  For me, that means approaching weight loss as a scientific experiment, and a willingness to see what is working, and what isn’t.  No diet plan will work unless you’re willing to work the plan, and that means evolving as your body adapts.

Discipline.

Hand in hand with diligence, discipline will make me mentally strong.  With discipline, the constant internal fights decrease in volume.  The little voice that says sleep in! You don’t really need to exercise, now, when you can do it later in the day! doesn’t win. The reasoning that says just this once won’t hurt goes away, because with discipline, as with diligence, comes habit.

Honesty.

If I fudge on a serving of something so it appears I’m within my calories or carb count for the day, who am I kidding?  I have still put in more fuel than my body can use for that day.  If and when that happens, I have to be honest with myself, because lying to myself or anyone else does not change what I just put in my mouth, or the exercise intensity I backed off on, or the water I didn’t drink, or the vitamins I didn’t take.

That also includes being honest with myself about the reasons why I’m fat, and not making excuses.  Yes, I have metabolic issues, but they are not insurmountable, and they are not an excuse for having let myself slide. Making excuses is just a way of trying to get around the hard work involved in getting healthy.  Regardless of whatever problems are present in my body, I can either sit around and bitch about them, or do something about them.  I’m choosing to do something about them.

I can choose to better my situation, no matter what that situation is.

Hard Work.

There’s nothing easy about losing as much weight as I need to lose.  There’s no short cut for building the muscle I need to build.  It takes hard work, and most of us want to take the easiest route possible.  Believing that there’s some magic bullet, some pill that will help, some hormonal treatment that will magically just melt off the pounds — well, that’s just so much BS.

Ever notice how most of these miracle supplements come with the recommendation of a diet plan and regular exercise?  My goodness.  That negates the reason for the miracle pill, doesn’t it?  One popular diet has people taking a hormone and eating a 500 calorie a day diet.  500 calories!  My bet is that if you just ate 500 calories a day, that would produce the exact same weight loss with or without the hormone.  And honestly, there’s nothing even remotely healthy about eating 500 calories a day.  Get into enough of a calorie deficit for a long enough amount of time, and your body will act to protect itself and weight loss will come to a screeching halt.

Food As Fuel.

Understanding food’s actual role in fueling the body means being selective about what you choose to put into it.  I will be choosing “whole food” options as much as possible.  There may be times when this isn’t feasible, such as when dining out, but whenever possible, I will choose the whole food option.  This means staying away from “frankenfoods”, or highly processed foods, including foods designated as diet foods.  That also means cutting out diet sodas, artificial sweeteners, and the like.

This is the plan.  My base diet plan is low carb in nature, because my body seems to respond to it best.  I’ll be posting specific goals along with stats at a later time, but for now, this is the first step on the journey.

I’m Lisa. I’m glad you’re here. It’s intro time.

May25

I’m Lisa.

I am 48 years old, female, pretty much sedentary, self-employed, with a number of medical concerns.  I am noting this because I expect all these things to change as I boogie on down the road toward getting healthy.  I have struggled with weight my entire life, but was able to lose the most weight while using the Atkins diet and exercise (cardio and strength training).  How much?  140 pounds of me gone — most definitely an entire person — and that was not my goal.

I failed.

I’m not beating myself up about this; well, not at the moment, but I assure you, I’ve gone through my pitiful share of self-loathing and criticism.  This blog is, more than anything, an exploration of using that failure as feedback and how to turn it around to success.  I don’t intend to berate myself or make excuses, because no matter what you say to someone else, it doesn’t change what a person does to derail themselves or to keep themselves from succeeding.

If you’re here before June 1, 2010, congrats! You won’t see any stats or anything yet.  😉  That’s the date I’ve given myself for making the jump to a healthier lifestyle.  Yes, I could start tomorrow, or this moment, and I’m a big believer in that, but I’m giving myself until that date to come up with the plan I’ll use, instead of just jumping in for a couple weeks and dropping off, again.

I invite you to read the About Lisa and Lisa’s Progress pages.  I’ll be adding a gallery that shows my current success as well as my past success; stay tuned!

I’m interested in hearing from you, too; with some caveats.  Because weight loss is a hot internet topic, I will be previewing comments before they go public.  Anything that’s an ad or some sort of a come-on will not be posted; nor will comments that are counter-productive.  Or… I may post the comment and my reply to it.  Which could be fun.  Right?  Right.

I’m Lisa.  This is what I think.  And I think this is going to be a wild ride!