Day 61

Well, things are not great.   Can you tell?  I haven’t posted in longer than I’ve wanted to because….ugh.  This isn’t to say that I’m back where I started, it’s mostly like…5 lbs shouldn’t be this hard to take off, you know?  Especially when, even AFTER those 5 lbs are gone, I will still be 20+ lbs. away from what is considered a non-overweight BMI.  Now, I don’t even put that much stock in the BMI, as a personal reference to what is healthy on me, but it means that even if I wanted to get down 10 more lbs. (which, eventually, I would like), than it will take approximately forever.

Ok, drama aside, I’ve been weighing myself every day, which, again…is not ideal.  I think because I knew I had a weekend of a lot of eating, and Monday is apparently my weigh-in day, so it was up to 194, and then 191 on Tuesday, and then 190 Wednesday, Thursday and today….even though I have ostensibly been doing “well”.  Like, brushing my teeth early, no snacking, healthy meals and no seconds kind of well.  The kind of well that is sustainable, it feels like.  The kind of well I wanted to be doing in the first half of my challenge.

The thing is, I’ve read that your body sort of has a natural weight that it sits at most comfortably, and barring some change, it generally equalizes back at that point.  So, from age 15 to 25, that weight was about 175.  Sometimes lower (during hockey season), sometimes a little higher (any other season).  I didn’t weigh myself too often, but it was usually around there and I wore the same clothes for a million years and never thought twice about it.  That’s not true, I always wanted to be smaller, but I never tried that hard, because I was athletic and ate decently already.  Then I turned 25, almost immediately started gaining weight, and sat at 210 for the next 5 years.  Post-adolescent metabolism change?  Probably something like that.  I didn’t like it, but there I was.  So…I decide on this challenge, buy a scale, and have sat at 190 for a few weeks…is this my new normal?  I can’t tell how I got here, or why, or if the effort I’m putting in (though somewhat minimal, in the world of weight-loss), is even making a difference, or if my body has just found a new resting point for the moment.  My question now is…what’s happening?

Ok, I have 38 days left until the challenge is over, and soon after that, I have college reunion (not my year, but I’ll know tons of people there), and soon after that, a wedding.  185 is not a drastic goal, but it’s one worth hitting.  I need to be really ever-present in my day to day to get to that place and be happy for myself when I get there.  It is possible.  I just…want to know now if I’m fighting with my body, or against it.

Day 54

Well, I had sort of been suspecting that my last weigh-in was not totally correct, or….of course it was correct at the time, but not totally representative of what I feel I weigh, so I weighed myself again yesterday with a few days between me and the weekend, and what do you know?  189.6!  Clearly I didn’t lose 2 lbs. in 3 days, so it sort of confirmed my intuition, that I was perhaps a bit bloated or something on Monday.  So…I am now accepting congratulations for reaching the 180’s.

In other positive news, since I fit into that one pair of Kate’s pants that are a size 14, she said, “well, don’t you have any old pairs of 14s you could wear?”, primarily because my clothes are all pretty old (because I hate shopping! Because I feel so fat! and so the badly-dressed overweight lady trend continues), but the thing is that when we moved, I made the decision to throw away/donate all my old pairs of size-14 pants, in what was supposed to be a freeing moment of bodily acceptance.  It’s not that it wasn’t the right move at the time, especially considering that I gained even more weight while living with my parents, but suddenly I wished for some of them back.  So yesterday, feeling confident, I dug to the back of my closet where I found, somehow, like, 4 pairs of size-14 pants…which I ignored, but I also found 2 pairs of size 16 pants, tags still on, that I had purchased who knows when, but clearly have never worn, because they were so tight on me that I felt indecent wearing them to any sort of office setting.  Ok, I can see this story dragging on when you clearly know the ending already….they fit!  Even better, one pair is actually a little loose on me!  I hate that 1 size can vary so much from brand to brand, but sometimes seeing the scale is motivating, and sometimes fitting into clothes I bought for “the day I lose weight” is motivating.  I’m hoping this motivation will keep on comin’ and comin’.

The bad side, naturally, is that I was feeling so good about myself that I ate a TON of mini-chocolate Cadbury eggs last night.  Reward myself for a good job, sure!  How about with candy!  No flaws in that plan!  So….I have to let my relaxation over the weekend not spread to every day of the week.  Also, since I’m not really tracking calories or anything, sometimes I get confused as to how guilty I should feel over certain things.  Like, yesterday I ate a banana with peanut butter right before I left the office, which isn’t unhealthy, and it kept me full until dinner, which was at about 7:30 that night, so 3 hours later, but….did I really need a 300+ calorie snack?  Or….maybe I did?  I know the answer is the actually track this stuff, but I’m notoriously bad at that and not really that interested. Plus, if I’m trying to start routines I can maintain for the rest of my life, that’s never going to be one of them.  But…if I brush my teeth right after dinner…or keep a candy I only like only a little around, so I can have one when I’m feeling a need for sweets, and then not want any more…those are good goals.

I’ve also realized that my next goal mark (Day 75), falls on April 1st, so…that doesn’t seem like a great sign, somehow. But, it’s exactly 3 weeks from now, and I’m hoping to be at 187? That seems reasonable.

Let’s think on reasonableness and meet back here for a reality check in a few days.

Day 50

And here I am, the halfway point.  A strange milestone, it seems, mostly because my mind is constantly trying to balance the importance of this goal with the rest of the very attention-needing things happening in the rest of my life.

As of this morning, I was 191.6, so half a pound up from my lowest, but I still consider this a success.  First of all, because roughly 5 lbs. 50 days in, or 1 lb. per 10 days, feels like decent progress, although it is not exactly on goal.  Secondly, even with the deadline coming up, I had a weekend of kind of terrible eating.  I drank 3 nights in a row, I didn’t measure out my ice cream and ended up finishing the carton (about 1/4 of a Ben and Jerry’s, but really?), and I snagged little snacks here and there, almost no veggies to be found.  Now, back on the weekday end, I’m sticking to my goals.  It’s always easier when there’s a specific schedule happening.  I think my progress is likely to continue during the weekdays, and as long as I’m pretty careful on the weekends, hopefully I can maintain it.  Also, a 1/2 lb up after that kind of weekend seems like a good sign.  It means I’m not eating back several pounds at a time, and since I plan to live my life with indulgences, that’s good with me.

I was hoping to see a number with an ‘8’ in it, naturally, but hopefully I can get there.  I feel like I should be a little happier today, but…honestly, 185 has never seemed quite so close or quite so far as it does now.  And as for the rest of my goals, I don’t think they’ll be reached at 185 either, which is a bit depressing.  This ring is not going anywhere for the time being, and even though my clothes are all looser on me, I’m not quite cleared to move down a size either.  And frankly, I felt all kinds of fat this weekend.  Maybe because mentally I knew I wasn’t eating well, or maybe I am actually bloated or something, but it was a bad feeling after looking at myself and noticing some changes.  Do you ever change enough to feel yucky and just shrug and be ok with it?  Unlikely, and this thought was not very encouraging.  I need something else to encourage me when I’m feeling a bit sad about my body, and that’s not there yet.

I need to find new little things to aim for, and my head isn’t in that space right now.  Hopefully I can focus on this a little more, and keep making the changes that will bring my closer to all my goals, not just the scale goals.

And on to the next 25 days….

Day 45

Ok, so I’m 5 days from the official mid-way point, and…I already sort of feel like this challenge has been going on forever, and on one hand my mind is eager for new challenges but also I’d really like to meet my goals and I’m sort of feeling like that might be possible, if only I gave myself enough time. So…55 more days it is, I guess.

So, my problem right now is that I am currently weighing myself all the time.  I think for phase 3 and 4, I’m going to weigh myself weekly, to avoid these “oh, I’m feeling fat today, let me see if that’s true” random weighing sessions.  So, Monday mornings it will be, conveniently starting on Day 50, a Monday.  I figure this makes me accountable for the weekends.

However, weighing myself often has brought some unexpected results.  I think it was on Friday I weighed myself?  Now I have no idea, it could have been over the weekend, and the scale was 197.  I was shocked!  I know your weight can go up and down based on a LOT of things, but all I could think all day, was that I was back to starting at square 1.  All my hard work, lost, and what was the point of this exercise anyway?  I wanted to quit.  However, then I was sick some of the weekend, undiagnosed nausea, I suppose, and Kate and I had a good start to our week with some actual vegetable dishes, something that seems harder to come by in the Winter.  Anyway, I pulled out the scale again this morning, just to see if that had helped, if I didn’t have to start from square one, and it read 191, my goal for next week!  Currently, I’m sort of floating on air.

Now, this exercise seems to prove as a reminder that a scale is not some perfect barometer of what’s happening in your body, but I do think seeing that lower number, even if it’s not completely permanent yet, is doing a lot more good in terms of my motivation than the higher number.  It makes me think I’ll see a number starting with a 18- someday soon, something I haven’t seen in SO many years.  I keep practicing how I want to react when people ask if I’ve lost weight and I say, “oh, only about 30 pounds, no biggie”….which is a bit premature, but I’ll take it.

Ending on a positive note, and trying to stay realistic at the same time, which is…difficult.

Next comes Monday, Day 50, official midpoint!