Thursday, April 22, 2010

April 22, 203

So the other day I weighed in at 201 and later that day I went shopping. I had been needing some stuff - new swimsuit, new jeans, seasonal sandals... I had an extraordinary experience with the shopping. I pulled stuff off the racks in sizes XL and 16 which made me feel like I wasn't plus-sized anymore. Then I went in the dressing room and tried it on, and everything looked at least okay on me, which means, even if it didn't look good, my body underneath it was not so horrible as to make it something I couldn't wear. My body as canvas for fashion art has become more yielding, my flaws more acceptable. I bought sleeveless tops - outrageous! I bought a dress - so hot! I came home feeling like the sexiest mf in town. My arms are fat but not TOO fat. My bowlful of jelly pooch is still there but it's TOLERABLE. My legs are fat but LONG. I have something like an hourglass figure. I was so high that night, it was impossible to contain myself. It makes me think that I might be very close to being where I want to wind up! I am very okay with a few extra pounds, if I could just make my belly a LITTLE BIT SMALLER. But honestly, for right now, I think I'm very close to where I want to be. I'm still looking to get to 198, but after that, I might chill out for a while. If only to get psychologically adjusted to being this size and to even begin to think about being smaller. The next smallest size is 14 and that's just beyond imagining for me.

I am not so high anymore. Yesterday I felt poufy, excess pudge particularly from the belly. I am having problems with not planning ahead and so getting caught without a plan - I can't seem to focus on the diet anymore or care about it so much so consistently anymore. I'm also still dealing with the raminfications of last week's road trip and the revelations that remind me to be depressed. Today, after binging on Mary Janes, ice cream, and cookie dough yesterday, I'm 203, which is cool because it's less than yesterday's 204.

Monday, April 19, 2010

April 19, 201!!

Weight Tracking. Last Saturday I weighed in at 203.5, then my weight bounced up last week and hung out around 205-207. Could have been related to my period, but then when my period seemed to be over, my weight stayed high. By this past Saturday's weigh-in, I was actually able to weigh-in at 204, which was a relief after last week but still a rise from the Saturday below, which had been a bit of a low bounce.

So yesterday I weighed 203, a new low, portending the possibility of good things. I went off-plan yesterday. For breakfast I chose bran flakes with nuts and raisins and 1% milk, no measurements, but a comparatively large bowl of cereal (compared with servings over the past year, not my normal idea of a bowl of cereal) and didn't have any protein with it as the meal plan would have had me do. Then I had a meal plan lunch - balsamic chicken with onions and rice and sauteed vegetables, but I also had half a Milky Way Dark. Then I had two puddings for snack, and then 1/2 a peanut butter and raisin sandwich to address my cravings (I was going to have a whole one but when I spooned out the peanut butter for just one piece of bread I decided to see if that would be enough to tide me and put the other piece of bread back in the bag. When done eating, I never even thought about that other half.) Altogether, 1/2 a Milky Way dark, 2 puddings, a bunch of Triscuits, and half a peanut butter and raisin sandwich seems to be too many calories for one snack. But then I didn't exactly have dinner, except for 3 Cadbury Creme Eggs.

So yesterday was sort of haphazard, eating-wise; not exactly a day to be proud of but not exactly bad either. Exercise was just the normal bending, lifting, and walking at work. My emotion and energy was very low, it was day 2 of a depression brought on by Friday's daytrip.

So today imagine my delight to stand on the scale and get readings all over the map from 201.5(!) to 200 (!!!!!!!!). I'm too scared - cautious - humble - to allow 200 yet. I will claim 201 knowing that's still a terrifying reduction from yesterday, from Saturday, and from last week.

I just signed in to report the news to fitday.com and was reminded that I am past due to hit my goal, again. I had originally budgeted to hit 198 by March 28, then when I missed that I changed my goal date to April 15. So - I'm still not there yet but I'm still progressing that way! Bouncy bouncy. In the chart below, you can see the rate of weight loss has slowed - my dark blue line used to run along with my weight at the beginning, but over time, I've pushed the dark blue line of my "weight goal" out further and further.


Friday, April 16, 2010

April 16, 203

Ok, it's funny what the scale does. You live right, you're up to 205.5 all week. You stress out and drink Jack & Cokes and eat, nay gulp down, McDonald's, the scale rewards you down to 203. Yay. I get it though, and I know I have my week of good living to thank.

Tomorrow's my weigh-in day, and I'd love to cash in on this low weight and - yeah - move down from here. But here's how it happens sometimes. Today, I'm taking a daytrip with my Dad and this other man. I have had my good breakfast, and I have packed a good lunch and snack - but not dinner. I figure I'll join them on whatever we do for dinner. Hopefully a healthy restaurant if I have any say in the matter - not the huge helpings Southern cooking restaurant my Dad likes, but the high-priced Asian cuisine downtown or something. It's a healthy organic hippie town, so we ought to be able to find something! That plus hopefully a bit of hiking. Even if my weigh-in is not what I'd hope for tomorrow, I'll feel okay because I'm still working but right now there is some life to be lived as well. It is spring and there is joy to be lived and I am doing well.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

here's how it happens sometimes

So I'm totally a stress eater, fuh sho. And, like, stress has been building up over time lately. One more thing on top of one more thing, one more day on top of the next, can't get everything done. Taxes have been playing a role, because they've been on my mind of things I need to get done, but haven't been able to focus on it for a while due to work. Then yesterday I lost my phone while run-walking to work, and I spent hours dealing with that. So today I retraced my steps again (stress), had a little interruption of false hope that kept me waiting still longer (stress), then went and bought a new phone (stress) - having driven across town in sluggish thick daytime traffic (stress) - then made efforts to get my taxes done, which involved several trips back and forth across town due to this form I left behind or this checkbook I forgot to bring with (I seriously drove over 60 miles today). At 8:30 I'm at the post office mailing my tax forms and facebooking my need for liquor. So I went by a bar and had 3 Jack-and-Cokes while playing Mahjong and got quite delightfully soused. Decide I'm dizzy enough and head out, and could you guess - I'm ready to totally abandon my diet. The Dairy Queen across the street is closed (I was going to buy the "Brownie Earthquake" and have just a couple bites) and as I drove home looking for gas (stress) and knowing I'm supposed to cook dinner at home (chicken something) I am FEELING more like... that McDonald's over there, and I go through the drivethru and get a Quarter Pounder and a hot fudge sundae.

The good news is I'm not here at home ready to pig out. I'm actually ready to gulp down too much liquor as I read, play video games, watch movies (Mendy, Carl Sagan Cosmos, Buffy Season 3 on hulu) and fall asleep too early for the party crowd. Tomorrow is another full day - "vacation" - but with a married guy I've never hung out with before, and my Dad, all day, and do I need to pack all my food for the day??? (stress)

All of this totally failing to mention the little breakdown I dealt with when I stopped in to donate blood at the Red Cross and was rejected - not for iron, but because of my heart. My pulse was too low, and also the nurse mentioned some irregular heart beats. I came home and freaked out. On the one hand, I feel fine - I had a workout this morning, I jogged 1.5 miles the other day without a hitch, I actually felt enthusiastic and energetic today alongside all that stress and healthy and all that, without feeling numbness or dizziness or any of that, but god knows I'm no great athlete either - nothing I read on the websites seemed to connect to my feelings and my pulse as reported by the Red Cross nurse. So on my outings today I went to the Rite Aid and sat at the blood pressure machine and had several readings in a row. It says the monitor was made to read arms from 9-13 inches, and mine is more like 15 inches, but still, my reading was perpetually very low for blood pressure, and my pulse came out around 57-61, not the 49 the Red Cross nurse reported. I have to get health insurance and go see a doctor. I haven't had a checkup in years.

Apr 15, 205.5

Darn, for the past few days my body has been weighing in at over 205. At first I figured it was due to my menses which started about the same time as this upswing. But the menses is gone and my weight is still not budging. Then there was the fact that Monday(?) evening I got this urge to go to this old local restaurant for nostalgia's sake and wound up overeating. Then this week maybe I had too many sugar-free puddings and maybe the Salisbury steaks that my meal plan demands are actually not conducive to weight loss, or maybe I've overestimated the 4-oz size of ground beef patty that they demand. Also, when I switched my meal plan to the Seasonal Spring meal plan, my calorie budget went up to 1600-1700. I don't know why that changes when I switch meal plans.

Anyway. Darn.

Fitness-wise it's been a pretty good week. The day after my restaurant-binge, with my extra calories in me, I had this extra energy that I took to the gym and decided to do 24 laps - 1.5 miles - more than I'd ever run before contiguously in my whole life - and did it pretty easily, after which I went and finished out my time demands on the elliptical. Sunday or Monday I did the yoga again. And yesterday I decided to walk-run to work, and lost my phone on the way so I retraced my steps, sometimes running, sometimes walking very slow - about 10 times resulting in something like a couple hours of terrain-coverage.

I'm still relatively committed to the diet, but could stand to be more so, I guess, if I want to ever, ever, ever get below 200 pounds.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

April 10, 203.5

Okay - back to official weekly weigh-in day and today's weigh-in is 203.5. Measurements done today show a waist-to-hip ratio of .96, which is down from the .99 I reported at the end of January. That's such an interesting development. I feel almost fantastic about .96.

My weight loss graph has become much more "hilly" in the past few months, more bouncing up and down, but the thing is I'm still reaching new lows as I bounce, so I still feel pretty good about it. My rate of loss is not what it was last summer (steady and speedy) when I was 250 pounds. Also, the not blogging about it every day helps to keep me from feeling the disappoinment of not being able to report progress. (Weighing myself every day doesn't get me down, but reporting sluggish results daily here drives me to frustration.)

203.5 is remarkably close to the 202.5 that was my previous low. That's really pretty encouraging! It helps me to feel like, as I progress along this journey - and even more so as I enter maintenance mode - that I will be able to enjoy the sweets and indulgences food can offer upin moderate occasion without my weight soaring unmanageably back to a high level that I can't even work myself up to trying to reduce again. I wonder if I will always, always continue to be a fat woman struggling to remain slender.

I haven't done yoga in forever, as I complained yesterday. I'm going to set up the DVD player and give it a go. 45 minutes of yoga seems like too long to wait for coffee and oat bran! So I'd better get started.

Friday, April 9, 2010

April 9, 204

Continuing the week and the weight gain from last week's off-planness continues to drip off, from 210 to 206, 205, and today 204. From having been 202.5. Most of what I gained was surely water weight, so maybe a week of Easter candy and restaurant food and Oreos and an open bag of tortilla chips while you Facebook will gain you 1.5-2 real pounds. (Try that for a full year!) I'm relieved things are going well. The weather's been so nice I keep opting for walking in the park as an exercise, instead of elliptical or yoga (yoga would involve reconnecting the DVD player, and besides it would be indoors) but it's been so long since I've done the yoga. Walking seems tepid, but the weather calls for it. I tried running again recently but my body wasn't up for it - weird how one random day your body just runs 1.3 miles and then not again for the next several weeks. Ha.

Life is pushing down on me. An intense week at work, continuing today, but the show previews tonight. Tomorrow is Family Day. Sunday I work another job. Then I must get my taxes done and sent off. Then, if I don't get any other work next week, a trip to the beach would be awesome, and a trip to the mountains would also be awesome. Meanwhile, I'm counting the weeks to my next actual paycheck, and the clutter of my life is making it hard to get across the floor or lay anything into my car. Oh, and I need to take my car in to get a part replaced - $260. And I've met a potential roommate, with whom I could have a housey house and animals at home, but the stress of leaving my current situation and telling my current roommate weighs on me.

That's nothing to do with my weight loss journey - that's just what's "weighing" on my mind right now.

I suppose I will breakfast, pack food, do dishes, shower, go walk in the park (while I read my book which was supposed to be finished by the end of March) and then work all day.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

April 7, 206

One day back on the diet brought the high weight of 210 down to 206. Really nothing else to say. It's a tough week for me - have to get through to Friday, and also Saturday and Sunday.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

hiatus

I won't go into the details or excuses for my hiatus. I feel no guilt or regret and it's been great for me. I guess after a year I just needed to, wanted to. Even though work is still stressful this week, I can't allow my hiatus to last another day, so I'm back on the plan today. I keep trying to press down below 207, 205, 200... and going off the wagon and bouncing back up. The other time I lost a lot of weight in my 20s, 207 was the low point that I bounced up from. My high school weight was around 210-215 by graduation. I wonder if there is some sort of natural barrier or plateau for me at this weight? Not impenetrable, but something that makes it hard to push past. Dropping below that might even entail letting go of a part of who I am (inasmuch as psychological understanding of self is affected by physiological understanding of self) which could be hard on me since I am rather attached to my own identity.

Weight today 210.