Today was my final weigh-in for August, and it brought great news! I lost 2.75 pounds last week! Woo! Here are my final figures for the whole month:
Weight: lost 11.5 pounds
Waist: lost 2 inches
Chest: lost 1.5 inches
Hips: lost 1.75 inches
Arm: lost .25 inches
Thighs: lost .75 inches
Calves: lost .75 inches
Total inches lost in August: 7
Such great news! Overall I've lost 20.5 pounds, which puts me a quarter of the way to my goal! Woo!
Can you tell I'm happy this morning?
Now, to make a plan for the next month. From here on out, I'm going to weigh-in on Saturdays. I'm going to have one cheat day a month, which will happen every fourth Sunday (except for special occasions, which will be additional). I'll measure myself once a month as well, either every fourth Saturday or on the last day of the month, I haven't decided.
Those details may change as I get into and through the month of September, and figure out what works and doesn't work for me. Above all, I want to keep the weight and inches coming off, so that I can reach my goal by next spring, hopefully. So adjustments may be made, but for now, that's the plan.
Oh, and September has an extra cheat day - the opening day of football season, which I think is two weeks away. J and I always have special treats for that day, then he watches the game, and I play the Sims. :)
Then of course, November will have an extra cheat day for Thanksgiving, December will have one for Christmas, but that should be it for the extra days, I think.
Okay, I'm rambling now. But yay, great weight and measurement news! I love it!
Monday, August 31, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Hiding behind Fat
This morning I got up and was going through the posts that had accumulated on my Google Reader overnight. There was an entry there from Eliza (Draw the Girl), where she quotes Anne Lamott, which basically says that you can't hide from your fears - you need to face them. Eliza goes on to say that in The Sound of Music, one character was hiding behind school, and another was hiding behind the walls of the convent. And it made me realize something.
I have spent pretty much my whole adult life hiding behind my fat.
Sounds weird, right? But it's true. I was afraid of getting into a real romantic relationship, because of the personal issues that I hadn't faced up to yet, so I packed on the pounds. Men aren't interested in fat women, right? (Well, so society would have us believe - there are plenty of men out there who like women with some meat on their bones, thankfully.) So I ate and didn't exercise, and got fatter and fatter, and it worked! Men, for the most part, stopped acting interested. I had what I wanted - I was being left alone.
Only of course, I didn't really want to be left alone. I wanted someone in my life, to love and share myself with. But until I was ready to have that, I hid behind the fat.
I'm happy to say that I finally faced my relationship fears three years ago this coming October, and I have the love of a great man to show for it. And it seems that I'm also ready now to shed the barriers I had put up to hide behind. I already have J, and I hope to have him in my life for as long as we're both alive, so what need is there to hide?
It feels so good to finally start to let those walls down. The fat was a great insulator until I was ready to face my fears, but its time has passed. I'm shedding it, and stepping away from what used to hide me.
I have spent pretty much my whole adult life hiding behind my fat.
Sounds weird, right? But it's true. I was afraid of getting into a real romantic relationship, because of the personal issues that I hadn't faced up to yet, so I packed on the pounds. Men aren't interested in fat women, right? (Well, so society would have us believe - there are plenty of men out there who like women with some meat on their bones, thankfully.) So I ate and didn't exercise, and got fatter and fatter, and it worked! Men, for the most part, stopped acting interested. I had what I wanted - I was being left alone.
Only of course, I didn't really want to be left alone. I wanted someone in my life, to love and share myself with. But until I was ready to have that, I hid behind the fat.
I'm happy to say that I finally faced my relationship fears three years ago this coming October, and I have the love of a great man to show for it. And it seems that I'm also ready now to shed the barriers I had put up to hide behind. I already have J, and I hope to have him in my life for as long as we're both alive, so what need is there to hide?
It feels so good to finally start to let those walls down. The fat was a great insulator until I was ready to face my fears, but its time has passed. I'm shedding it, and stepping away from what used to hide me.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Quarters and Significance
I realized today that when I get to 20 pounds lost, I'll pretty much be 1/4 of the way to my goal. Whoa! That sounds so significant.
Twenty pounds just sounds more significant anyway, doesn't it? I'm at 17 3/4 pounds lost right now, but it sounds like nothing next to 20. It's funny how we perceive these things.
Also, 17 3/4 pounds seemed to be the magic number for having people at work notice. I wrote about the receptionist saying something the other day - yesterday a second person told me I was looking really good. Woo! I love it so much. Of course, two people saying something isn't exactly a floodgate of compliments, but I still love it, and it's a nice bit of validation.
It may be taking me forever to get this weight off, but you know what? It didn't go on overnight, so I knew going in that it wouldn't come off overnight. And I've pretty much stopped counting ahead and trying to figure out when I'll get to goal, or how much I can expect to weigh at Christmas, or whatever. I'm more interested in finding out how much I lose each week. The number each week is kind of small, but you add a bunch of weeks together, and it becomes so significant.
I'm feeling like I'm kind of uncharted territory now, too. The lowest weight I've been in the last ten years or so is roughly two pounds MORE than I weigh right now. So even though I hit my current number at some point on the way up the scale, it's been so long that I can't really remember being there. You know? So every lower number I see on the scale is just that much more exciting.
Weight loss is hard, but it's also kind of fun, in a way. You eat less, you move a bit more, and your body cooperates by slowly taking off the extra fat. It's a great feeling. :)
Twenty pounds just sounds more significant anyway, doesn't it? I'm at 17 3/4 pounds lost right now, but it sounds like nothing next to 20. It's funny how we perceive these things.
Also, 17 3/4 pounds seemed to be the magic number for having people at work notice. I wrote about the receptionist saying something the other day - yesterday a second person told me I was looking really good. Woo! I love it so much. Of course, two people saying something isn't exactly a floodgate of compliments, but I still love it, and it's a nice bit of validation.
It may be taking me forever to get this weight off, but you know what? It didn't go on overnight, so I knew going in that it wouldn't come off overnight. And I've pretty much stopped counting ahead and trying to figure out when I'll get to goal, or how much I can expect to weigh at Christmas, or whatever. I'm more interested in finding out how much I lose each week. The number each week is kind of small, but you add a bunch of weeks together, and it becomes so significant.
I'm feeling like I'm kind of uncharted territory now, too. The lowest weight I've been in the last ten years or so is roughly two pounds MORE than I weigh right now. So even though I hit my current number at some point on the way up the scale, it's been so long that I can't really remember being there. You know? So every lower number I see on the scale is just that much more exciting.
Weight loss is hard, but it's also kind of fun, in a way. You eat less, you move a bit more, and your body cooperates by slowly taking off the extra fat. It's a great feeling. :)
Monday, August 24, 2009
It Finally Happened
I was just replacing some outdated brochures on the front office bulletin board, when the receptionist, who was on the phone, mouthed to me that my pants were getting big on me, and gave me a thumb up.
Woo! She is now officially my favorite person in this whole office.
I wondered when someone at work would say something, and apparently it was when I had lost 17.75 pounds! Ha! I love it so much.
Woo! She is now officially my favorite person in this whole office.
I wondered when someone at work would say something, and apparently it was when I had lost 17.75 pounds! Ha! I love it so much.
Progress Report
Today was weigh-in day, woo! Today I weighed 1.5 pounds less than last week. This is a good thing! So why do I feel disappointed? I'm so tough on myself when it comes to weight loss. I want to lose two pounds a week, not 1.5. And that's a sucky attitude to have, because as long as I'm losing, it's all good.
So I need to quit it and be happy. Really. I'm one and a half pounds closer to goal, woo! Okay, that's better.
So this was a good week, but it could have been better. I said last week that I wanted to get my calories down to 1350-1450, but I still managed to get awfully close to 1550 most of the week. But this week I'm hoping to turn that around. The dining location I go to during the school year opens today, so I'll be able to go down there for lunch, and have healthier options (turkey sandwiches, salads). Which means I'll be able to eat less calories and fat for lunch than I have been, so it should be easier to stick to the range I want to hit this week. I'll tell you how I do next week.
This weekend I started walking, too. Friday was registration day for the incoming college students, so I was working on the other end of campus, and ended up walking the length of the campus a couple of times. A year ago, this would have killed me. This year I felt good doing it. Woo! So on Saturday, I decided that maybe I'll start walking for exercise, while the weather is still nice enough to do so.
Walking! Should be fun. But I didn't want to do it alone - not when I have four dogs living with me. So I looked at the dogs. Rosie would drive me crazy trying to sniff every square inch of road we walked down. Bernie has a bum elbow, that I'd really rather not make worse. Duff has a tumor growing in his chest, pushing on his lungs, so he's out. That left Willow. Willow, my scaredy cat dog, who is afraid of everything, and was apparently so horribly abused in her former life (before I adopted her as an adult from the SPCA) that she thinks bad things are right around every corner. She's afraid of having the leash on her neck, but you know what? We'll try it anyway, I thought.
So I tried to get her outside by herself. She wasn't having any of it. She slipped her collar when I tried to pull her out. So I got the leash and put it on her - and then had to DRAG her out the front door by the leash. Wow.
Once we got out there, though, she did better. She was really fearful and nervous for a short while, but by the time we got to my neighbor's house, she was doing much better, and she ended up having a lot of fun. And so did I! We walked up to the top of the first hill, then we turned around and came home. It was a short walk, but it was exercise, and it felt good.
Well, it felt good until the next day, when my calves started hurting. They're still hurting now, two days later, but that's okay. It's a good kind of pain, and it'll go away.
So. Exercise - started. Willow liked it, I liked it, and as soon as my calves stop being so painful, we'll go again. Weight - a bit more lost. It was a good week, all in all.
Here are my calories for the last week.
Monday: 1526
Tuesday: 1535
Wednesday: 1533
Thursday: 1526
Friday: 1498
Saturday: 1411
Sunday: 1360
See? Too many days hovering between 1525 and 1550. I need to have days like yesterday all week this week.
Okay, enough early morning rambling from me. One more week down! One week from today is my final weigh-in for my 30 day challenge, and I'll also measure next week to see how my body has changed.
So I need to quit it and be happy. Really. I'm one and a half pounds closer to goal, woo! Okay, that's better.
So this was a good week, but it could have been better. I said last week that I wanted to get my calories down to 1350-1450, but I still managed to get awfully close to 1550 most of the week. But this week I'm hoping to turn that around. The dining location I go to during the school year opens today, so I'll be able to go down there for lunch, and have healthier options (turkey sandwiches, salads). Which means I'll be able to eat less calories and fat for lunch than I have been, so it should be easier to stick to the range I want to hit this week. I'll tell you how I do next week.
This weekend I started walking, too. Friday was registration day for the incoming college students, so I was working on the other end of campus, and ended up walking the length of the campus a couple of times. A year ago, this would have killed me. This year I felt good doing it. Woo! So on Saturday, I decided that maybe I'll start walking for exercise, while the weather is still nice enough to do so.
Walking! Should be fun. But I didn't want to do it alone - not when I have four dogs living with me. So I looked at the dogs. Rosie would drive me crazy trying to sniff every square inch of road we walked down. Bernie has a bum elbow, that I'd really rather not make worse. Duff has a tumor growing in his chest, pushing on his lungs, so he's out. That left Willow. Willow, my scaredy cat dog, who is afraid of everything, and was apparently so horribly abused in her former life (before I adopted her as an adult from the SPCA) that she thinks bad things are right around every corner. She's afraid of having the leash on her neck, but you know what? We'll try it anyway, I thought.
So I tried to get her outside by herself. She wasn't having any of it. She slipped her collar when I tried to pull her out. So I got the leash and put it on her - and then had to DRAG her out the front door by the leash. Wow.
Once we got out there, though, she did better. She was really fearful and nervous for a short while, but by the time we got to my neighbor's house, she was doing much better, and she ended up having a lot of fun. And so did I! We walked up to the top of the first hill, then we turned around and came home. It was a short walk, but it was exercise, and it felt good.
Well, it felt good until the next day, when my calves started hurting. They're still hurting now, two days later, but that's okay. It's a good kind of pain, and it'll go away.
So. Exercise - started. Willow liked it, I liked it, and as soon as my calves stop being so painful, we'll go again. Weight - a bit more lost. It was a good week, all in all.
Here are my calories for the last week.
Monday: 1526
Tuesday: 1535
Wednesday: 1533
Thursday: 1526
Friday: 1498
Saturday: 1411
Sunday: 1360
See? Too many days hovering between 1525 and 1550. I need to have days like yesterday all week this week.
Okay, enough early morning rambling from me. One more week down! One week from today is my final weigh-in for my 30 day challenge, and I'll also measure next week to see how my body has changed.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Learning
I've always been a "closet" eater. Not that I ever physically locked myself in a closet to eat, of course - this is a purely metaphorical closet.
I would hide my eating. Not all of it, just what I thought was too much. Eating lunch? No problem, I'll sit there and eat with you and not worry about what you think, no matter what I'm ingesting at the time. Ripping open a bag of chips and a package of cookies and eating half of each of them while watching TV? I'd only do that if I was alone.
So it's no surprise to me that the times I have to be extra careful now are the times when I'm home, but J isn't. If he's there, I'll be good. If he isn't? I'll very likely be in the kitchen over and over again, looking for something to stuff into my face (that is, if I didn't just go to the store on the way home, buy a bag of Goldfish and some peanut butter M&M's, for example, and just open them up and eat them all over the course of the night. Which yes, I've done more than once on nights when he wasn't going to be home).
But now I'm just over halfway through my month of not going over my calorie limit. So that behavior has changed a bit.
Tonight, for instance. J is at work, due to come home at some point, but probably not until I've been home for a few hours alone. I've been out to the kitchen a few times. But so far I'm resisting temptation. Yes, I did eat one thing I shouldn't have, but I stopped there.
Why is tonight different? Is the challenge stopping me? Maybe. But you know what I really think it is? I'm feeling the difference that being good every day, as opposed to four or five days out of seven, can make. I like the feeling. My fatty areas are slowly shrinking. My clothes are getting slightly larger every week. I'm starting to think about wearing size 16 pants, and then 14, and then 12, and then...you get the idea. (And yes, I did just admit that I'm in a size 18 pants right now. I won't tell you my weight yet, but I will tell you that.)
I look in the mirror now, and while I don't yet like what I see, I am no longer repulsed by what I see. My overall shape is about the same, just a tiny bit smaller, so it doesn't seem like my opinion on mirrors should have changed yet, but it's starting to. It's starting to change because I know that I'm changing. I know that I'm doing the work to get smaller. I know that the shape I have now will go away, and that the smaller shape I can see underneath it will emerge.
These positive thoughts make facing that reflection a bit easier.
Now, these 17 days of behaving haven't cured me. If I went off this diet tomorrow, I'd go off big, just like I did in July. But I won't go off it tomorrow. I'm learning too much during this 30 days. I'm starting to like myself again. I don't want that to change.
These 17 days of behaving also haven't cured my need to hide my overeating. But just maybe it has given me the tools to resist the temptation.
For today, at least, this closet overeater is staying out of the kitchen.
I would hide my eating. Not all of it, just what I thought was too much. Eating lunch? No problem, I'll sit there and eat with you and not worry about what you think, no matter what I'm ingesting at the time. Ripping open a bag of chips and a package of cookies and eating half of each of them while watching TV? I'd only do that if I was alone.
So it's no surprise to me that the times I have to be extra careful now are the times when I'm home, but J isn't. If he's there, I'll be good. If he isn't? I'll very likely be in the kitchen over and over again, looking for something to stuff into my face (that is, if I didn't just go to the store on the way home, buy a bag of Goldfish and some peanut butter M&M's, for example, and just open them up and eat them all over the course of the night. Which yes, I've done more than once on nights when he wasn't going to be home).
But now I'm just over halfway through my month of not going over my calorie limit. So that behavior has changed a bit.
Tonight, for instance. J is at work, due to come home at some point, but probably not until I've been home for a few hours alone. I've been out to the kitchen a few times. But so far I'm resisting temptation. Yes, I did eat one thing I shouldn't have, but I stopped there.
Why is tonight different? Is the challenge stopping me? Maybe. But you know what I really think it is? I'm feeling the difference that being good every day, as opposed to four or five days out of seven, can make. I like the feeling. My fatty areas are slowly shrinking. My clothes are getting slightly larger every week. I'm starting to think about wearing size 16 pants, and then 14, and then 12, and then...you get the idea. (And yes, I did just admit that I'm in a size 18 pants right now. I won't tell you my weight yet, but I will tell you that.)
I look in the mirror now, and while I don't yet like what I see, I am no longer repulsed by what I see. My overall shape is about the same, just a tiny bit smaller, so it doesn't seem like my opinion on mirrors should have changed yet, but it's starting to. It's starting to change because I know that I'm changing. I know that I'm doing the work to get smaller. I know that the shape I have now will go away, and that the smaller shape I can see underneath it will emerge.
These positive thoughts make facing that reflection a bit easier.
Now, these 17 days of behaving haven't cured me. If I went off this diet tomorrow, I'd go off big, just like I did in July. But I won't go off it tomorrow. I'm learning too much during this 30 days. I'm starting to like myself again. I don't want that to change.
These 17 days of behaving also haven't cured my need to hide my overeating. But just maybe it has given me the tools to resist the temptation.
For today, at least, this closet overeater is staying out of the kitchen.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Progress
I weighed in this morning, and I'm down 1 1/2 pounds from last week! Woo! I'm very happy with this. I'd like to lose 2 pounds per week, but really, as long as a bit of weight comes off each week, it's a good thing, right?
I have a couple of goals for this week. First, I'd like to get my calories consumed between 1350 and 1450 per day. I like being just a touch under the upper end of my range, if possible, and I've been at the high end more than not so far this month.
Second, I'd like to cut back on my fat consumption just a touch. I've had that number at the upper range more often than not this month, too, mostly because I'm eating lunch at work, never knowing in advance what they're serving, and they don't often have a low fat option that I like. But that's okay - it just means I can't eat a lot of fat the rest of the day. So I need to work on adjusting that better.
Third, I'd like to raise my fiber intake. Sparkpeople says I should be aiming for between 25 and 35 grams per day, and so far this month I've been lucky to hit 15. So I got my Fiber One bars when we got groceries this week, and I'll start eating one each night to help out with that.
I guess that's it - my three goals for this upcoming week.
Also, I feel like I should confess to the fact that I haven't been exercising much at all. It's bad, but it's been so hot lately that I just can't bring myself to come home to a hot house and work up a sweat working out. Blah. So I'm giving myself a little time off from worrying about that. For now I'm working on getting my diet back where it should be and making that a habit - I'll work the exercise back in once I can move without immediately being covered in a film of sweat.
Okay, so here are last week's calories consumed:
Monday, 8/10: 1546
Tuesday, 8/11: 1540
Wednesday, 8/12: 1520
Thursday, 8/13: 1484
Friday, 8/14: 1397
Saturday, 8/15: 1490
Sunday, 8/16: 1382
I can see that I started to get my calories closer to my preferred 1350-1450 range at the end of last week. I'm shooting for in or close to that range all of this week.
Okay, one more week down! I can't wait to report on next week. :)
I have a couple of goals for this week. First, I'd like to get my calories consumed between 1350 and 1450 per day. I like being just a touch under the upper end of my range, if possible, and I've been at the high end more than not so far this month.
Second, I'd like to cut back on my fat consumption just a touch. I've had that number at the upper range more often than not this month, too, mostly because I'm eating lunch at work, never knowing in advance what they're serving, and they don't often have a low fat option that I like. But that's okay - it just means I can't eat a lot of fat the rest of the day. So I need to work on adjusting that better.
Third, I'd like to raise my fiber intake. Sparkpeople says I should be aiming for between 25 and 35 grams per day, and so far this month I've been lucky to hit 15. So I got my Fiber One bars when we got groceries this week, and I'll start eating one each night to help out with that.
I guess that's it - my three goals for this upcoming week.
Also, I feel like I should confess to the fact that I haven't been exercising much at all. It's bad, but it's been so hot lately that I just can't bring myself to come home to a hot house and work up a sweat working out. Blah. So I'm giving myself a little time off from worrying about that. For now I'm working on getting my diet back where it should be and making that a habit - I'll work the exercise back in once I can move without immediately being covered in a film of sweat.
Okay, so here are last week's calories consumed:
Monday, 8/10: 1546
Tuesday, 8/11: 1540
Wednesday, 8/12: 1520
Thursday, 8/13: 1484
Friday, 8/14: 1397
Saturday, 8/15: 1490
Sunday, 8/16: 1382
I can see that I started to get my calories closer to my preferred 1350-1450 range at the end of last week. I'm shooting for in or close to that range all of this week.
Okay, one more week down! I can't wait to report on next week. :)
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