Category Archives: weight loss

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DAY 146: I’ll double-take that

You know those Magic Eye images that were huge in the ’90s?  I could almost never see them.  If I did, it was because someone with the patience of a saint who had found the hidden picture 20 minutes prior wouldn’t give up sitting with me until I was able to see it, too.  I could certainly never find them on my own.  Just keep that in the back of your mind for now.  This is going somewhere, I promise.

I made it home from my beach trip just in time to weigh in for round 4 of my Transformer Diet Bet.  As of this evening, I am down some more weight AND a confirmed round winner!  That’s actually not the point of my post tonight, though.  It’s an answer to Day 94.

A little under 2 months ago, I got all bent out of shape because I saw a photo of me that did not seem to accurately reflect all the progress I’d made on my mission up to that point.  It crushed my morale for most of that day, and even though I rallied, it’s something I continue to think back to sometimes.  Why is it that you can feel so (comparatively) small and hear constantly how small you look, yet still not look the way you think you should in pictures?  It’s one of the most baffling parts of this whole thing.  I know that even if I were a skinny bitch, there would be certain photos of me that didn’t square with my version of reality, but come on.  This is like EVERY PICTURE.

Well, today, for the first time — in a weigh-in photo for DB, no less — I finally saw myself in a picture.  I mean, it probably helps that I’m all sun kissed and have flowy beach hair, but I actually look the size I feel in my submission picture from tonight.

The Magic Eye tactic that many tried to impart to me, but that I could never practice, was to relax my eyes and stop looking so hard.  If you refocus your vision and try to look at the real image instead of searching obsessively for the hidden one that you can’t even picture because you don’t know what it looks like, it’s much harder to find it.  That’s true here, too.  I keep thinking, madly, that I should look like I’ve lost 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 pounds, but I don’t.  I’ve only now realized that it’s not because I still look big, but because I’m getting into sizes I haven’t seen in years.  I don’t know what that looks like on me, so I don’t know what I’m looking for in pictures.

Tonight, I wasn’t looking for the secret image; I relaxed my eyes and saw the picture for what it was for the first time.  Not coincidentally, for the first time, I liked what I saw.

For those of you who read my ramblings regularly (smooches!), you might know this is a poignant message for me to suddenly grasp at this moment.  I immediately took the leap with this thought to my life in the dating desert.  I’m not going to be a totally passive Disney princess who sings “Someday My Prince Will Come” to her running shoes, but I’m also not going to be an aggressive dating ninja who pounces on every rare specimen seemingly worth the time on OKCupid.  Hell, I’m still learning to work these heels.  I can’t be falling too hard right now.

Sorry, boys.  I’m gonna keep my eyes intently focused on the hidden image of myself when it comes to you.  See ya in 6-8 months when the picture becomes clear.

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DAY 143: Not ready, Freddy

I have a cousin who’s very special to me.  He’s actually my dad’s second cousin and he is my dad’s age, but they two of them are very similar and pretty close with each other, so I’ve always had more of a niece-uncle relationship with this cousin ever since I can remember.  I look forward to long talks with him at our family reunion every year, and he’s the person I’m always most eager to see.  When we were saying good-bye at the end of the reunion last month, he looked at me very seriously and with a genuinely confounded expression on his face, and he asked me, “How have you not been snapped up yet?”

I ask myself that sometimes, but it’s never a thing I have to wonder about very long.  Every reason I can think of, in the end, ties back to the weight.  I don’t feel attractive, hence I don’t put myself out there in the first place, hence I am alone.  I actually am not attractive, hence no one is attracted to me, hence I am alone.  I spend all my free time in the gym, hence I don’t make time to meet or go out with anyone, hence I am alone.  I have not felt like my true self in a long time, hence I can’t represent who I really am to a stranger, hence I am alone.  The list goes on and on.

Of course, when you are uncomfortable enough with the real issues, you become a master deflector.  You don’t want to think about it, hence you distance yourself from it, hence you answer such heartfelt questions with something like, “I don’t know, man.  You need to have a talk with your gender on my behalf.”

Fifty-three pounds ago, I went on my first OKCupid date.  I had no business being on a dating site in the first place, but I figured there was no harm in looking.  Well, sure enough, I stumbled upon Perfect on Paper Guy.  We had some astronomically high compatibility rating, a lot of similar interests, and a good amount of similarity in character.  Before long, PPG and I progressed from in-app messaging to text messaging for hours.  A week into this pattern, I got a message from him that said “OK, we have to meet, because you are too good to be real.”  That was like a heart flutter and a heart attack at the same time.  I knew I was too good to be real; he was surely envisioning some 120-pound girl, and he was about to meet an obese chick.  I should have told him, or I should have had it on my profile that I was overweight, but I conveniently never mentioned it or completed that particular field on my profile.  I put the in-person meeting off for a few days, but eventually, it was time to pull the trigger.

The amount of psyching myself up to go through with it was Herculean.  I probably lost a full pound that day just from having an elevated heart rate from nerves.  Before it was time to meet, I took myself to the roof of my office building and tried to calm myself the fuck down by writing on the back of an ATM receipt — the only paper I had on me — in order to keep some perspective.  I still have it, taped inside my real diary:

“NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS,
You’re doing great.
You’ve lost weight.
You’ll continue to.
It’s not too late.
You’re proud of yourself.
You know who you are.
You deserve the best you can get from life.
Another person’s feelings about you don’t change or matter more than your own.”

On the other side, I wrote:
“BREATHE EASY.
He’s just a person.”

I stared at that piece of paper for 20 solid minutes before heading over to meet him.

Predictably, it did not go fantastically.  His face registered visible disappointment when he saw me and realized he’d been sold a bill of goods and this fat-ass was the person he was now obligated to spend the next interminable window of time with out of politeness.  To top it off, we had ZERO chemistry in person, likely because of my lie by omission.  (Honestly, though, I have the sense that he just doesn’t have much of a personality when he’s not communicating via text.  It wasn’t a loss for me, in the end.)  We suffered through 45 minutes in each other’s tortured company, then endured a painful metro ride in the same direction, until he mercifully got off at his stop.  I texted him a thank-you on my walk home, he said you’re welcome, and that was it.

I figured the little experiment bought me another 40-50 pounds before subjecting myself to another such ordeal.

I recently heard somewhere that women’s biggest fear when meeting a man from online for the first time is violence.  Men’s biggest fear when meeting a woman from online for the first time is that she’ll be fat.  There’s ample evidence that supports this.  Having had the experience I unwisely set myself up for in the spring, and then hearing about that, and then stumbling upon Bye Felipe right before my ill-advised second OKCupid date tonight was quite unfortunate.

This one went wrong for all the OPPOSITE reasons.  First off, I initiated things with him.  I was all stupid and giddy and high on Seattle and just went for it.  It went the same way it started with PPG, and we texted round the clock for an entire week.  I accepted a date like 3 days in.  Stupid.  Then, I told someone about it.  Double stupid — but she did hold me accountable and make sure I didn’t punk out and not go.  That was a feat within itself, because unlike last time, I wasn’t nervous.  I wasn’t even excited; I was annoyed that I was losing out on yet another night of my sacred and much-needed gym time, and mad at myself for so quickly forgetting the self-inflicted awkwardness of the last date.

BUT, I met him tonight, and it was fine.  I even had fun… but like, fun I would have with my girlfriends.  I really didn’t feel it with him.  Unfortunately, he clearly felt it for me, which is a situation I have been in… uh… once, ever.  I have never done so much tap dancing to avoid being kissed.  I have also never gotten so much positive attention and been told I’m cute and attractive and blah blah blah.  I am SO. UNCOMFORTABLE.  The whole time, I was annoyed because my pants were falling off and my top was sliding off my shoulders, which probably looked like an intentional sexy move, but is actually because nothing I own fucking fits anymore.  (I know, I know, first-world problems.  Just saying, it made me self-conscious.)  I was able to be myself, which I guess is the good thing I can take away from the experience, but I am 100% not ready to be taking steps towards finding a relationship.  I’m still way too squirmy for that.

So, I am indefinitely swearing off dating.  I’ll have to figure out a way to tell this guy I want to be friends, which I mean, without making it sound like a brush-off or revealing that I’m an obsessive RFG (Recovering Fat Girl) and I ain’t got no time fo’ alllll dat right now.

Leave it to me to overcome the Bye Felipe obstacle and skirt the showing up fat and being rebuffed risk, only to turn into the rebuffer.  Sigh.  I’m a damn mess.  I should be locked in an isolation chamber until I’m thin.

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DAY 142: Sleeveless in Seattle

I got back from the West Coast late Monday night.  I had a WONDERFUL time making new friends and reconnecting with old ones, all while exploring a couple fantastic cities I had never seen before.  I made a concerted effort to get my steps in while I was out there to counteract the ridiculous food indulgence I participated in, and even though I fell short for 3 of 8 days and I only made it to the gym ONCE in the past 10 days, I’m labeling the trip a success in the weight-loss chronicles.

When I weighed myself Monday night, I fully expected to see my first weight gain since I started this mission in late March.  Instead, what I somehow saw was a two-pound loss.  (Thank you, surprise Seattle hills!)  I mean, I ate pretty well in terms of meals: most meat was salmon, I had a few salads, and I ate as close to normally as I could — with the exception of the bacon EVERY MORNING at breakfast.  It was the desserts, though.  What I REMEMBER is splitting a decadent piece of chocolatey something with 3 people, a Snickers ice cream bar, an Oreo ice cream bar, half a piece of tiramisu, half a serving of panna cotta, a piece of lemon coconut pie, gelato, more ice cream, a square of fudge, a Godiva chocolate bar, more ice cream, and whatever else I’m forgetting.  Of course, there were also the endless treks across Seattle, the seven flights of stairs, and that 3-mile hike up a proper mountain in British Columbia.  So, as with all the other components of the weight-loss experience, it all comes down to balance. This week, the scales definitely tipped more towards the consumption than the burn, but because that has not been the norm in the past 5 months, my body was like, “Relax, girl.  I got this.”

I love you, body.

Digression:  I also got a couple of affirmations during the work part of the trip.  Someone I only see at the conference I attended (read: annually) said when she saw me for the first time this year, “Every time I see you, you look different.  You’re thinner and you changed your hair.”  (It’s funny, everyone thinks I’ve gotten a hair cut because I’ve been wearing it down more.  No, guys; I haven’t had a hair cut since May.  If anything, it’s a hair growth.  Does a thinner face make your hair look shorter?  Life’s little mysteries.)  Someone I work with but haven’t seen since winter said when she saw me the first day of the conference, “You look so GOOD!  You’ve lost a ton of weight, right?!”  Then, she proceeded to ask me how and started telling me that she was going to try and lose some before her wedding next year.  She brought it up with me again later in the trip.  Since I’ve been back, two people have made a point of letting me know that they’ve noticed, too.  One has told me two days in a row, very pointedly so I’d know exactly what she meant by her comment, “You look good.  Really good.”  The other is a few months pregnant and said to me, “Are you disappearing, lady?” to which I responded, “I’m having a reverse pregnancy.”  That’s four people in a little over a week.  I guess the fat’s out of the bag.  (OHHHHH!)

Anyway, I also rocked a dress I bought online and was too tight to wear 3 weeks ago, but uh…

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Again: I love you, body.  My “work for it, and it will work for you” mantra is in full effect.  (And yes, that’s a bra on the floor behind me.  Whatevs.)

So, after a week where I was sure I was going to gain enough weight to knock me out of contention on my two pending 4-week DietBets, I’m now poised to win both.  I have a weigh-in for my Transformer bet (which I have to be careful not to disqualify myself from through losing too much) over this upcoming weekend, when I will be in Atlantic City.  At the top of my packing list?  Scale.  Oh, life on a mission.

I’ll have another rambly post tomorrow, or possibly the day after, about another pretty weird part of what life is like these days.  For now, it’s all good news.  I hope the same is true for you guys!

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DAY 132: Excess baggage

I’m writing this post at the airport, where I’m waiting for my flight to the West coast to board. It’s been a while since I filled a suitcase with so many pairs of shoes that it actually felt heavier to me than the 50-pound checked bag limit (or whatever it is now) – y’know, now that I can wear high heels. (This is a BFD.) My bag is also full of materials for this conference I’m staffing for work all week, so I really wasn’t sure if I had overloaded it past the restrictions. So, before I left for the airport, I decided to weigh it. First, I weighed myself, then weighed myself holding the suitcase.

Reaction #1: Holy cow, holding a suitcase made for checked baggage that’s filled with 8 days’ worth of crap is not as easy as it sounds while trying to read the scale.

Reaction #2: That summabitch is heavy.

Reaction #3: It weighed 44.4 pounds – that’s not that heavy! I do 3 sets of 12 reps with a barbell that weight every other day. Why did it feel like so much?

Reaction #4: I’ve lost 74 pounds exactly as of today’s weigh-in. I was holding over half of that amount in my arms for just a moment while trying to get the weight of my suitcase. How the hell was I walking around with all of that and more attached to my body in the form of fat? And I still have so much to lose!

Reaction #5: I’ve lost not that far from double the amount of my suitcase. I’ve lost a solid suitcase-point-7. I’ve never been so happy to say I have lost a suitcase. (Here’s hoping the airline doesn’t read this and get any ideas.)

This weight-loss experience has started to fade from exciting to just weird. It’s… otherworldly. I’m suddenly mirroring Biggest Loser contestants who have to put the weight back on in sand-bag form for a physical challenge, and feel so stunned that those pounds were ever part of their bodies. I’m all nice to strangers and fittin’ into airplane seats and paintin’ my toenails on the regular. And the high heels – I mentioned the high heels, right?

I’m a walking Picasso painting.  I don’t know what the hell’s going on anymore.

If surreality is the new reality, I guess I have no choice but to get on board. I think my well-clad feet and I can make our peace with that.

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DAY 122: Hello, me!

Sometimes, I just feel like the universe has my back.

Things have been really tough at work again this week, and even though I’ve been handling it well — not slipping back into old patterns, expressing frustration instead of eating it, etc. — it’s been trying.  Two days ago, at the end of a completely unproductive meeting where no one addressed anything of relevance, I kind of lost my shit and went on a 5-minute rant about the time we all just wasted and how if we want to stop being all talk, we need to discuss things that actually matter.  It turned into a singular focus on one particular example of my point, and I got a little bit in someone’s face for not being on top of what she needed to be on top of.  This person outranks me and this was in a group of about 16 people.  I mean, I wasn’t over the top or yelling or insubordinate, and I didn’t go out of my way to embarrass anyone, but I was firm, assertive, and unapologetic.  Since it was the end of the meeting, I wasn’t sure how that whole thing went over, and decided to just shrug it off — if it were terrible, I surely would have heard about it right away.

Yesterday, while heating up my lunch, one of the people who had been part of that meeting came into the room.  We greeted each other, and then she immediately got serious and said, “There’s something I need to say to you.”  Uh-oh.  I was pretty sure she was about to tell me I had behaved unprofessionally and crossed an unnecessary line in the meeting the day before.  Instead, she said, “You look GOOD.”

We then spent the next 10 minutes talking about my weight loss.  My co-worker’s affirmation really built me up after a string of crummy days.  She was effusive with her compliments and encouraging with her support.  To top it all off, we ended up talking about the previous day’s meeting at the end of the conversation when I confessed to her that’s where I thought she was going when she originally approached me, and she laughed.  She told me she was nodding at everything I was saying in the meeting and was glad someone finally stood up to hold people accountable!  Double affirmation!

I think — and I hope — the main source of the heightened stress at work is coming to an end today, so relief is in sight.  My horrendous January taught me never again to let the tension get the best of me, and this time around, I’ve learned to channel it into more productive avenues than overeating and sleep loss.  I haven’t strayed from my meals at all or lost a wink of sleep in the face of this, or my heel spur, or the last few days of unwelcome hip pain.

Also, my previous go-rounds with weight loss have taught me that being all touchy about it is immature and counterproductive.  You can’t simultaneously want to hide it from everyone, yet hope people comment on your progress.  I’m forcing myself to get comfortable with having conversations about it when people give me compliments, not only for my own accountability in the process, but also for my own personal growth.  It’s always been harder for me to accept praise than criticism, and that’s just stupid.  I want the recognition, and damn it, I deserve it.  I’m still having an easier time talking about it with strangers than with those closest to me, but progress is progress.  I’m working on it.

The universe is peppering my path with reassurance at very opportune times.  It’s reinforcing the lessons I’ve learned and helping me embrace new ones.  It’s incredible how all-encompassing the weight-loss adventure can be if you open yourself up to everything it offers.  I’m just in awe of that.  It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

I’m getting more excited all the time about what life will be like at the end of this whole experience.  I know I’m already healthy, and I have full confidence that I can continue to become even healthier.  I’m starting to see enough changes in my body to imagine what the thin version of myself will look like, and that’s mind-blowing to me.  But most importantly, I’m really starting to discover my (new?) personality — it’s like meeting a new (schizophrenic) friend.  I’m starting to respect and appreciate myself in a way I don’t think I ever have.

I think I’m really going to like the girl waiting for me at the finish line.

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DAY 119: Drum roll, please…

The lab work is back.  I just got off the phone with my doctor, who read me the results.  Buckle up!

Total cholesterol:  dropped 29 points and into the goal range!
–>HDL (good cholesterol):  was in healthy range before, but could have been better — up 2 points
–>LDL (bad cholesterol):  dropped 17 points and below the goal!

Total triglycerides:  dropped 71 points and WAY below the goal!
–>A1C:  dropped 0.4 and below the target!
–>Fasting sugar:  dropped 23 points and below the target!

TL;DR version:  All the numbers went significantly the right way, and I am no longer anywhere near pre-diabetes.

I think I just got sustenance from that phone call.  Vegetarian week be damned.

**happy dance**

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DAY 118: From sanity lapse to sanity laps

I’ve mentioned before that I had an extraordinarily awful January.  Between the post-holiday blues (sadness), a catastrophic set of circumstances at work (stress and anxiety), my friend-divorce (outrage), and feeling disgusting and listless from being at my all-time highest weight (self-loathing), I’m still not really sure how I was able to drag myself out of bed every morning.  I really started going out of my mind.

It was during this horrible month that I started bonding with Jiminy (my VivoFit).

On a whim, I bought a deeply discounted VivoFit from Best Buy in an after-Christmas sale.  At first, I just wanted to get an idea of what baseline exercise I was getting by walking to and from the metro and walking around my office during the day.  Soon after, I started using it for the polite little red arrow that reminds the wearer to move that booty every couple of hours.  It provided me a good reason to get up and walk away from my desk pretty regularly throughout the day, which was time I could use to be alone at work and clear my head.  I started calling these little excursions my sanity laps.  My co-workers started recognizing when I was taking a sanity lap; they’d wave as I went by, some even wishing me a good sanity lap.  Before long, the moniker — and the practice — started catching on around my office.  I still see a few people on their own sanity laps as they walk past my office during the work day.

Sanity laps turned into an effort to meet the steps goals that Jiminy set for me every day.  It began with around 3 miles per day, which I was getting through regular activity.  Eventually, it became a higher number than I could get just through commuting and taking sanity laps at the office, and it became necessary for me to start using that gym membership I’d been paying for, pointlessly, for 6 months.  Thus, a fitness regimen was born.

Today, I’m up to a minimum daily steps goal of 15,000, which works out to about 6.7 miles per day.  I concentrate on getting at least those steps through a combination of regular activity and gym time, but have been setting monthly mileage goals for myself since June.  Last month, I hit my goal of 200 miles.  This month, I’m on pace to meet my goal of 223.2 miles.  I’m also on my way to a total of 2 million miles since I first started wearing Jiminy, having hit 1.5 million as of June 22nd.

It’s hard to know what the main source was of my sudden commitment to losing weight when I finally got in the saddle for battle in late March.  Certainly, I was tired of being tired and I had something to prove, but this handy little tool gave me the edge I needed to go for it.  I know I’m the one to put in all those steps, all that thought for preparing healthy meals, and all that time in the gym, but I doubt I would have had nearly the success I’ve had without my little VivoFit companion.  Sure, it gets annoying when the red bar of arrows fills up completely and I’m in a place where I really can’t do anything about it, but it’s great to have an accountability system for myself.  I love having the excuse of getting up to walk around several times during the day.  I love surprising myself every day when I surpass my steps goal, even though it seems so unattainable when I first get up in the morning.  I love seeing the old adage that every step adds up, play out before my eyes.

There’s really no big huzzah note to end on here.  I just wanted to take a little time and celebrate my external conscience, Jiminy, for the difference he has made in my life.  Mad love for VivoFit!

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DAY 115: Doctor! Doctor! Give me the news!

I’m not even sorry for getting that song in your head.

At the end of March, I went for my first doctor’s appointment in about 12 years.  I had already dropped about 15 pounds from my all-time heaviest weight in January, but this was obviously a drop in the bucket.  I had put off visiting a GP for so long because of the overwhelming embarrassment and shame I felt at going in there and having my weight read, not to mention what other bad news may have been revealed.  I was finally in the right mindset to go by then, though, and so my outward adult dragged my inner child in for a long-overdue check-up.

I spent the appointment fighting back tears while complaining of incredible stress, nerves, anxiety, fear, and sense of worthlessness.  I expressed to the doctor that I knew my weight was the main source of all of these things, even if there were additional external contributors.  She listened to everything I said, spoke with me as if she had all the time in the world, and provided support instead of lectures.  Even though I still had the expected sense of shame for being my size, it felt good to actually unload all of that on someone who didn’t have an emotional stake in it (and therefore wouldn’t tell me things weren’t that bad), but who could still be sympathetic and easy to talk to.  After the appointment, my doctor ordered a full blood panel for me.  Not surprisingly, my numbers could have been better.  My sugars were at pre-diabetic levels and my bad cholesterol was a little elevated.  Immediately after sharing this information with me, my doctor suggested I work on my weight as we had discussed, and come back and see her in July.

This morning was the follow-up appointment.  I have never, ever, ever, ever, in my entire life, smiled so much in a doctor’s office.  That includes when I was little and used to get pretzel rods and lollipops for getting those shots I was never afraid of.

First, the nurse took me back to take my blood pressure.  Then, it was scale time.  I guess she was using my previous weight as a starting point, because she moved the 50-pound weight into a category I haven’t been in in a while.  I almost told her that was too high, but figured it would be more fun to let her discover that on her own.  (I’m a smug little thing sometimes.)  Once the nurse notated my weight, we went back over to the exam table and she entered it into the computer, where she kind of froze in place.

“When you were here last time, we had you weighed in at XXX — is that RIGHT?!” she asked.

“Yup.” I said.

“GO ‘HEAD!” she exclaimed.  She continued about how hard I must be working, that I was doing great, and keep up the good work.  That was pretty cool.

Then, I was in the exam room alone and waiting for the doctor.  Usually, I check my phone or read something while I’m waiting around, but this time, I just kept staring at things around the room.  My hands.  The extra expanse of lap I could see on the exam table compared to the last time I was there.  The scale weights, which the nurse had left in place, reflecting my weight loss over the last 3.5 months.  My reflection in the metal paper towel holder.

When my doctor came in, she greeted me, asked how I was doing, and whether I was experiencing any new pain since our last visit — she was in the process of pulling up my file on the computer screen as I answered her questions.  Suddenly, she furrowed her brow and stared very seriously at the computer screen.  Then, she murmured, “Wait…” and inched her face closer to the screen.  I was actually worried, and said, “Oh no, what’s wrong?!”  The doctor’s face immediately broke into a huge grin as she looked at me and asked, “Have you lost fifty-one pounds since your first visit?!”

The woman did not stop smiling the rest of the time she was in the room.  Before she’d come in to see me, the nurse had told her I’d lost weight, and she was expecting it to be 10, maybe 15 pounds.  She kept repeating how proud she was of me, how impressed she was, how I had made her day, how I was doing this the right way.  She wanted to know what I was doing, if everything felt right while I was moving, what I was eating, how often I was working out, if all of the weight loss was intentional, how my anxiety and stress were, and how I felt overall.  She kept nodding and smiling throughout the conversation.  She asked what my goal weight was and approved of it.  When we came to the point of the conversation about the purpose of this doctor’s visit, and she realized it was for follow-up blood work, she scoffed out loud and said, “Well, you’re not gonna be pre-diabetic now.”  She said we could skip the blood draw unless I wanted to do it, and I said I actually did want to see the change in numbers, and she was even excited about THAT.  At some point, she mentioned that their office is going to move to a big building where they’ll have a training center, a demonstration kitchen, seminars, support groups, etc., and said she would want to bring me around as show and tell for all her patients who insist they’re doing everything they can to lose weight, but she knows they’re not because “the numbers don’t lie.”  She high-fived me early in the visit and hugged me at the end.  It was like getting a report card full of As and being so excited to go home and hang it on the fridge tattoo it on my forehead.  She wants to see me again in 6 months to see how I’m progressing.  As soon as she finished saying that, she added in through her plastered-on smile, “I probably won’t even recognize you by then!”

The nurse who first escorted me to the exam room came back after the doctor left to do my blood work.  I’ll have the results in 2-3 days.  Even if the numbers aren’t in normal ranges or better, I will still be flying high from how fantastically that appointment went.  I’ve had a spring in my step all day.

Guys, I know that a lot of the time, my posts sound really confident, positive, and dangerously close to obnoxious with self-congratulation.  I’m sure it gets irritating, so I feel the need to explain that there’s a reason I let myself go on like that, and it’s beyond the simple “because it’s how I feel.”  It’s because I haven’t always felt this way, and as I continue along my mission, the positive emotions may stop or become harder to reach.  I’m allowing myself to talk to death about how accomplished and successful I feel for that girl in the doctor’s exam room 3½ months ago whose self-doubt and self-abandonment landed her there in the first place.  I’m also doing it for the girl 3½ months from now whose weight is taking longer to come off and who is tired of working so hard all the time.  I have to honor the past version of myself to keep me going in the present, and I have to bank my triumphs in the present to keep me going in the future.

Thanks for letting me do that.

by

DAY 112: Vacation revelation

I just got back from my first trip of the summer.  It was full of things I couldn’t have done last summer, or even a few months ago:

  • Doing the look-what-I’m-trying-on ritual while shopping with a girlfriend
  • Wearing a bathing suit
  • Wearing a bathing suit in public 
  • Riding a zip line (I didn’t actually do this because we ran out of time, but I would have been under the weight limit this trip, when I wouldn’t have been a few months back)
  • Climbing up monstrously steep hills to get to the line for EVERY slide at the water park
  • Riding water slides in inflatable inner tubes (I would have been over the weight limit before)
  • Share a hotel room with another person and not be self-conscious that I would keep them up by snoring all night

…Which is why I gave myself permission to do a few things I haven’t allowed myself to do much of during the past few months on this mission of mine:

  • Eat a sandwich and fries from Wendy’s (it was the only option on the road, and I chose this over salad)
  • Eat a personal pizza from a popular restaurant at the vacation site
  • Eat free ice cream from the random ice cream social our hotel threw the first night there
  • Eat onion rings.  Yeah, that’s right.  Onion rings.
  • Eat a piece of cheesecake from a hyped-up cheesecake place near the vacation spot
  • Fall short on steps for 2 days (not consecutively, at least)
  • Eat homemade no-bake cookies (not more than 1 a day, at least)
  • Make my own MASSIVE chocolate bar and take 3 bites of it before sticking it in the freezer until after I win my 2 pending Kickstarter Diet Bets
  • Eat 7 Milano cookies

It may sound like I am getting borderline passive about my habits of late, but I’m not on a slide.  I’m still 100% committed to getting healthy, and still 100% confident that I can.  This is part of the practicum of adapting to real life permanently.  I’m not going to deprive myself of food when it’s part of an experience of being in a new place, and I feel comfortable partaking because I fully know — and stay within — my limits.  I am strong enough not to bow to group mentality.  When my friend splurged a little extra, like when she got a milkshake in the middle of the day and offered to treat me to one, I passed.  When the meal I ordered at the water park included chips in the price and they insisted they couldn’t give me a reduction if I didn’t take the chips, I still chose not to have them.  I am keeping it all in check.

I only lost .4 pounds this past week as a result of my slackened grip these last few days, but I can honestly say I have no regrets.  A loss is still a loss, and I made calculated decisions to deviate from my usual plans with full knowledge it would yield lower weight-loss numbers on the scale this week.  I feel at peace with that, and I feel pumped to see how much I can work off this week.

I’ve talked before about feeling in control of this, so that’s nothing terribly new or exciting.  The reason this was a big deal for me is that the friendship I ended in January reared its ugly head the day before I left on this trip.  My ex-friend sent me an e-mail saying sorry, blah blah blah.  I had to search my soul about whether or not I wanted to pick off that scab by resuming contact, even if only to say “too little too late, fuck you very much” and call it a day.  Do I respond at all?  If no, will the unsaid things eat me alive?  If yes, what do I say??

Instead of responding right away, I decided to practice this patience thing I’ve been working on and cool my jets about it.  I thought it over during my long walk before the drive to the destination the next morning, and I could feel my blood starting to boil just gaming things out in my mind.  Realizing that, and thinking of what a toxic relationship that was, and thinking about how quickly I said “I don’t think I do” when the friend I was traveling with asked me later if I wanted to be friends with that person again, it occurred to me that anything I said in response would be an invitation for all that negativity and stress to enter my life again.  I’ve come too far for that.  After four full days of thinking it over, I ultimately opted for sanity and decided to say nothing in response to the ghost of that dead friendship.

I did all of that, while on vacation, without surrendering to the mild anxiety of the decision that lay before me by pigging out.  I’m still nursing a damn heel spur, too, mind you.  I had every excuse in the world lined up in a neat little row for me to play like a poker hand in the name of over-indulgence, and I purposely left those cards on the table.  I feel proud and satisfied, and I completely stand by all of the choices I made over the past several days.

Nice try, old life, but you lose.

by

DAY 107: Taking the good with the less good

You know those times where you catch your reflection in the mirror and think, “Hmm — I look thinner today!” and wonder if it’s true?  They are a precious thing.  They happen so rarely for me that I can remember each isolated incident.  I never weigh myself those days because the scale may not validate my observation, and I’d rather cling to my illusions.  (I know, I know, measurements and shit, but am I gonna bust out the tape measure every time I feel thinner?  No.  I am lazy.  I am also the world’s most inept measurer.  Every month when I take my inches, they’re barely different from the last time, yet I have cycled through 3 pants sizes [and counting!] since I started this mission.  Riddle me that.  And count your blessings I’m not building America’s bridges.)

That long-winded intro was a means of announcing that I had one of those I-look-thinner moments this morning.  I decided to wear a shirt I bought 2 months ago that was already starting to fit loosely, because it’s a shirt I really like and I may not be able to wear it much longer before it starts to hang and look silly.  Sure enough, it was a little roomier on me today, so I’m gonna have to start its farewell tour.

In the middle of the day as I was walking through the office, someone walking past me stopped in her tracks and said, “GIRL!  You are looking SLIM!”  I smiled and said thank you, and she asked, “So, are you doing it?” (her tone implied “Are you going for it??  The long haul?  The THINNESS?!”)  I responded, “Hell yeah, I’m doing it!”  Cuz, well… I’m doing it.  She said, “Yes, get it!”

That’s person #4.  🙂

The end of the day was a little les of a yippee moment.

Yesterday afternoon, I noticed a weird popping sensation in my foot with every step.  It didn’t hurt, just felt weird, and has never happened before.  For some reason, medical health professionals love me, so my podiatrist’s office got me onto the doctor’s schedule today.  Long story short, they did some x-rays and found that I have a little bone spur on my heel.  It’s not debilitating, and it’s not even painful, just something I’m very aware of when I move.  The doctor said if it didn’t hurt, we shouldn’t worry about it, but to make a follow-up in 2 weeks if there are any changes and we will try a cortisol shot.  I had sort of suspected that it was a bone spur from what I knew about them, and as an (almost formerly!) obese chick who all of a sudden started spending a lot of time on her feet, it’s not unusual that I would end up with one.  My doctor thinks it’s likely to go away on its own, and he said there’s no need to change anything I’m doing, so at least I can keep doing my usual work-outs and getting in my daily steps.  I’m so relieved about that.  I think if I had been advised to stay off of it or anything, I would have had a minor panic.  I hope it goes away soon, though.  It’s uncomfortable and just annoying.

Anyway, I have 2 Diet Bet weigh-ins coming up later this month, so I’m taking the good with the less good and continuing to work towards knocking off those goals.  Here’s hoping I can quickly heal my heel!