random thoughts at 207

So at work this week.

First of all, I've been getting more popular with the local stagehands union since I've been working more with them. A lot of the stagehands are men. My popularity is not only with the men, not at all. But I'm taking lots of little incidents and adding them all together to make a generalization that makes me wonder if I'm being 'considered an option' or whatever. Some of the men who've always seemed to like me are showing it more. This is hardly to say I think all the men are attracted to me. Most I don't get that feeling from, and even those that I do get vibe from, well, I have learned to doubt my intuition in these matters and consider they're just being friendly. I don't know how much of it has to do with my changing form and how much of it has to do with my increasing presence and popularity with them, but I'm finding it harder to be ignored and left alone at work, is all. I'm finding it hard to balance the desire to prettify myself and the desire to stop unwanted attention before it starts so I can zone off by myself undisturbed.

For sure I haven't been feeling very sexy lately. Not nearly as much as I did when I was fat, or probably more to the point, before I had the sexy knocked out of me by one discouragement after another.

One of them this week asked me - "You look good, you've been losing weight haven't you?" And, unlike most of you, I'm not overwhelmingly positive about these kinds of comments. I feel like I have always been deserving, and do not desire greater acceptance based on my weight. I suppose that is "fighting the tide" but frankly it's just my perspective and my resentment about the way the world is. On the other hand, the comments that I do get are always intended in a friendly and empathetic way, as if they themselves had to battle the bulge themselves from time to time or had a loved one who struggled with their weight... It never comes across as a i-hate-fat-people thing. But I don't want this to make me any different in others' eyes. I feel the same and I don't want to be more popular just for being thinner.

Of course, in other social arenas of my life I feel I've decreased in popularity, so... ...that's another story... :-/

I guess I am just being wary of getting new better treatment based on my looks. I prefer having the people in my life who already see me and know me for who I am with that not being tinted by what I look like. They are not treating me any different, and that's worth a bunch to me.

So I answered 'S' - "Yes, I've been dieting for about a year now." He said, "That's the way to do it, nice and slow. So are you where you want to be, are you happy now?"

I said, "No I'm not happy. I still have goals I want to achieve."

He said he understood, that his daughter went through it. And that made me feel a little bit better about the whole conversation.

So yeah, if you saw my pictures from yesterday, you would have seen that I'm still waiting for that belly to go away!

On the other hand, I realized this morning that I'm so lucky to still have my boobs. I have loved them so. I'm not sure about the cleavage though.

This morning the scale actually read 207. 207 is important. 207 is the smallest weight I've weighed in my entire adult life. When I weigh less than 207, I'll weigh less than I have my entire adult life. I don't know if I can expect that tomorrow though, because today I ate a turkey sub with potato chips and dill spear from a restaurant. With a pear and an orange, that's all I had today! And still I went over on calories! From just one meal! I ate half in one sitting and half in another sitting. I've had this sandwich before and it's an old favorite, so I decided to have it again today. The bread and the mayonnaise are fantastic. I figured that the mayo is probably not light, and I had the cheese on the 1st half, but after seeing how many calories was in that cheese, and knowing I don't care about that cheese, I easily removed it from the 2nd half. Obviously I wanted the mayo, but I should have probably got rid of those potato chips - that was a lot of calories and I knew it would be. All told, sparkpeople seems to indicate that it was still about 2000 calories today.

All from one meal. And that's how I used to eat. I could have eaten it all in one sitting today too, but knowing about how many calories it was, I knew I shouldn't and that I needed to ascertain the caloric impact before continuing on to the 2nd half, I forced myself to stop.

Sparkpeople has been a boon for me. After months of sticking to a prescribed meal plan (which was great because it broke me from the old ways and showed me what my meals should look like) I am now feeling more liberated and empowered to make my own meal choices.

That said, I need to go make a plan for ediets for next week, and go to the grocery store tomorrow for my new meal plan.

After 207, it will be another 4.5 pounds down to 202.5 to get to "overweight". How exciting! And yet - I didn't realize it was so far away! I thought I was *almost* there. Maybe I'm actually 5'10. I don't know, I might actually be 5'10.

You know what, I did feel kind of slender and graceful and sexy tonight, when I was doing yoga. I bought these fantastic leotard-type spandexy thermal undershirts and a new pair of yoga tights and did yoga tonight. (Completed the entire session and really could feel myself able to fold over myself more.) At one point I was bent over and opened my eyes and saw... that little teardrop opening that happens between the pelvis and the thighs. When I first discovered that thin-thighed women's thighs were separated, I was freaked out. It didn't seem natural to me. Now check me out with my separating thighs. Ha! However will it affect my knock-kneed legs. :-P

Oh, ok, one more thing. I'm all like at the gym, working out like always, my heart rate is basically above the suggested cardio rate most of the time, at peak. I listen to my body and this feels to me like the right place to be - to go slower wouldn't feel like a workout. I'm not really pushing myself a lot, but when the ramp goes up to levels 10-13, it gets a little harder to push and my heart rate goes into the 160s. It always does and it feels like an appropriate workout to me. But, the guy next to me is at elevation 9 or 10, with resistance 9 or 10, and he's going faster than me and his heart rate is a measly 136. A heart rate of 136 for me would be like crawling. I didn't take a good look at him, but he seemed a slender athletic body type in his early 30s perhaps. It made me question the differences in our bodies at that moment, our muscles, our cardiovascular response... Always, when I workout cardiovascularly, I always aim for a heart rate of 150+ and how does he go so much faster than me and keep his heart rate so low and does this mean I'm not as healthy as I feel like I am?

Oh, one more thing: a few of my favorite new finds:

Amy's vegetable korma (organic) (frozen dinner) - the mutter paneer was not so great but I'm eager to try some of the others.

oikos yogurt, but you already knew about that

South Beach high protein snack bars. Amazingly, I didn't reach for the chocolate-flavored ones, but the cranberry-almond ones. Easy and just right for a snack. Almost too filling if taken with beverage.