Off Scale Edification

Weight Watchers Weigh-In has me up 2 lbs today.  This is not really surprising to me for two reasons.  Reason 1.  I’m on the front end of my cycle.  (Sorry boys.)  This means that I am retaining water like a dry sponge.  AND BONUS my appetite is up b/c of aforementioned cycle.  DOUBLE BONUS, I’m really stressed out about work stuff.  I will give you a guess about what I do when I’m stressed.  Reason 2.  I started weights this week.  There is no doubt in my mind that I am possibly the weakest I have ever been.  There is no where but up for my muscle density to go.  Additionally, when muscles are repairing themselves, they have an awful habit of retaining fluid.

Anyone else sensing a trend here to my week?

That being said, anyone who as been at the weight loss effort for a while knows that sometimes you have to go off scale for a little edification.  And so here is mine:

Weight: 207.8
Bust: 44/40 (-1.75 inches total)/(no change)
Waist: 38.75 (-1.25 in past month/-3.75 inches total)
Hips: 54 (this is a new measure across the hip bones)
Bottom: 45 (-2 inches total)
Thigh: 27.5
Upper Arm: 13.75

Cheers!

Weight Watchers, take five.

I guess it’s time to eat (hahaha!  pun intended) a little crow.  Last year I said I didn’t want to go back on Weight Watchers.  I talked about how in the past in hadn’t worked for me, at least not long term.  And yet here I am, back on Weight Watchers.

It’s familiar but different.  As before, I need to find a good leader.  I like the Saturday morning person, but I will usually have Bean and that is hard to manage even though Bean tries to be good.  There is a meeting at 6:30 a.m.  I have yet to make it to that one.  The Sunday person seems nice but doesn’t seem to have quite the sense of humor that the Saturday woman does.  And, if anything, this process is going to require a sense of humor.   There are more points and more flexibility.  And yet a number of foodstuffs have more points than they use to so I think it all comes out in the wash.

“Yes, but what changed with you?” you ask. Ugh.  So many things.  And, in the end, what didn’t change is what drove me back.  The weight is still there, figuratively and literally.  My daughter is four years old, and I am still a version of me I never wanted her to see.  I never wanted her to see me struggle with my weight.  I never wanted to infect her with this…this…what do you call it?  A disease?  A compulsion?  A mental illness?  A habit?

No child should ever know, at seven, what “Slim Fast” is.  What ten year old should be on the American Heart Association Diet?  My parents always told me I was pretty with their mouths, but watching them struggle with their health bled into my own fledgling identity. How could it not when being on and off and on these diets was the norm for my family?  So ingrained was this that even in the depths of Alzheimer’s my grandmother was concerned with her weight, refusing to eat anything but chicken breasts and grapefruit.

I do not want to model a life, for my daughter, of being consumed by what I consume.

I KNOW what do to.  I KNOW how to do it.  But doing it?  Actually doing it…the canyon between those things is so wide that I can only trust that others are right when they tell me there is another side.  It is so deep that I can only hope there is a bottom to stop me when I fall.

Face the Music Monday

As anyone who has been at the weight loss game for any length of time knows, it is easy to get derailed. It’s also hard to focus only on the weight loss effort with so many other things (work, kid, dogs, family, husband, yard) screaming (sometimes literally) for my attention.

Here is my status by the numbers.
Weight 207.8, +5.8 from pre-new year low (-9.ish lbss total)
Bust: 44/40 (-1.75 inches total)/(no change)
Waist: 38.75 (-3.75 inches total)
Hips: 45 (-2 inches total)

The question, this morning, is how to move forward. What do I focus on? What short-term goals do I set? The long-term goal has not changed. But I’m honestly open to trying another path, even an old one like Weight Watchers, to get there.

Report: Rally Day 3

Ugh. WHY DID THERE HAVE TO BE PIE?!!! 202.8. The battle continues.

Rally to under 200: Day 2

Very little of yesterday went according to plan.  I had to work last night and so split my day into two shifts, one in the morning and one in the evening.  Weather was looming and I wasn’t sure I would be able to get all my errand run.  (I was right.)  But I did manage to get to the grocery store and get almost everything we needed for tonight and tomorrow. The really nasty stuff held off until after I was at home.  But then I just waited it out.  I don’t mess around when I hear there is the chance of 60mph straight-line winds.  The consequence of this was that I didn’t make it to the gym.  😦  So I was very worried about stepping on the scale this morning.

But for no reason!!!!!!  (happy dance! happy dance!)  I am very pleased to report that as of this morning I am at 201!!!!

Closing in on Thirty-Five

OK. So I haven’t talked about weight-loss in a while.  I’ve been at a plateau.  In all honesty, it has been a generous plateau.  Though I haven’t been losing, I’ve not been gaining either.  I’ve been between 203 and 205 the whole time.   An immediate problem has focused my attention on getting passed this.  I am two weeks from my thirty-fifth birthday.  And, well, I refuse to go into thirty-five on this side of 200.

So here’s the plan.  For the next two weeks I am going to obsess about counting calories.  Those going in  at meals and out at the gym. No more of this lackadaisical attitude.  I’m going to weigh everyday, even though I know I’m not suppose to.  As of yesterday I was 204.8.  This morning I was 202.6. And by my birthday, I will be in the 190s.

Yes.  I know that there is a Thanksgiving and a wedding between me and that date.  I don’t care.

I’m not recommending that anyone else do this, by the way.  I’m not doctor.  I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn last night.  I’m just gonna put my shoulder into the wall and push.

Check. Check. One. Two. Hey! is this thing on?

So a month has passed since I last touched base. In that time, my kid officially turned four. I maintained my 15ish pound weight-loss. Feared I might have lost one of my oldest friends to our lives moving in separate ways. Coordinated the Homecoming events at work. Recovered from coordinating the Homecoming events at work. Got incredibly irritated with some house guests. Finished two quilt squares under the tutelage of <a href = “http://www.etsy.com/people/trelilli. And finally bought tickets to head to Brooklyn for a wedding.

Reading that just makes me want a drink and a nap.

Here’s a interesting wrinkle brought up by that last item on the list. During the last three-four years, I haven’t exactly bought a slew of clothes. In fact, I’ve only bought what I really had to buy. This has been good on the check book but not so good on my options for anything NOT work related. And so now, I find I have a wedding and absolutely nothing to wear to it!!! The only things I have that are even remotely appropriate are now too big AND not at all garments for an early winter wedding in Brooklyn, NY. And, truthfully, I have found a number of lovely things I would like to order, but I really don’t want to drop 100-150$ on an outfit in a size I hope to not be for very long.

Anyone got something I can just borrow? Size 16. 29ish inch inseam. A little baby chub left on the belly. Not especially busty. I’ll just wait. Shall I?

Face the Music Monday

Today by the numbers:

Weight 204, -2.6 this week (-13lbs total)
Bust: 44.5 (-1.25 inches total)
Waist: 38.5 (-4 inches total)
Hips: 45.5 (-1.5 inches total)

Admittedly this has gone more slowly than I had hoped. I have been at this round for 10 weeks now and I had honestly hoped to be sub-200 by now. Obviously I am not. But I think it is important to note that I haven’t stopped trying. Unfortunately for me, the weightloss effort has not and really cannot be my only focus. There is so much else going on. Always so many things competing for my attention.

If you are a slow loser like me, don’t get discouraged. Stick around. It’ll be worth it.

And now, I’m off to buy new work pants! Pictures of the rocking skirt coming soon.

Face the Music Monday

This post is not about weight loss. OK. That’s a lie. This post is totally about weight loss. I mean, what else is there really? As a kid, when you are the chubby kid anyway, your weight (its loss and gain) becomes the defining facet of your identity. All other parts are either colored by your weight or completely overruled by it. Nothing escapes the influence.

If you are a good writer, then it is only because you are trying to escape being overweight.

A good runner? Well you are obviously built for endurance, not speed.

Funny? Well we know that the chubby kids have to have a sense of humor.

You know the worst part of all of that? That’s the stuff you are telling yourself. Because whatever our friends, families and enemies are telling us, we are by far our own worst devils.

I learned a couple of hard lessons this weekend. The shallowest way to put it is that I am too old to do things like stay out until 3am. Why? Because years of training means I’m still going to wake up at 5:30. And no number of naps makes up for 2 hours of sleep. But the real lesson is that there are longer term consequences to my goals when I choose to do certain things. Lack of energy = stuff doesn’t get done. Sure, it was difficult yesterday to shake off what can only be described as a hangover of many levels. Yet the part that I’ve been obsessing over all day is the idea that I sabotaged myself. After a great Saturday morning, and a great race, I failed to follow through.

I let myself down. I gave into my worst tendencies of indulgence. I undid 2 weeks of effort.

And my devil has not let me forget it.

She’s Got the Look

Holy crap.  OK, so today, like today, now, on a whim, I tried on my other size 16 pants.  (yes yes…this is along the lines of weighing myself repeatedly throughout the week, in the words of the character played by Peter MacNicol on Ally McBeal, “bygones.”)  So where was I?  Yes.  OK.  So I tried on my size 16s.  You know, the ones I said still fit kinda wonky.  And.  Well. After the squat test, THEY FIT.  HOLY CRAP!!!!

And so I started thinking, what else might fit?  A sudden flurry of trying on everything I own was cut short by the fact that half of my clothes are at my dad’s in storage from when we had the house on the market.  But still, there were things here.  Shirts to be tried on and judged.  How too big is just too too big?  What should be packed/given away?  Should I go ahead and move in to fall colors?  Should I scrap the whole shebang and start over?    Ooooh.  Maybe an upgrade to Banana Republic?  nono..can’t afford that.

But I’m telling you, “XL Tall” is looking like a dead man.  “L Tall” is the new black.

Bonus:  Now you have the Roxette Song stuck in your head too.