October 9, 2015 by Life Can't Weight

DAY 200: Milestones update

Welcome to the fourth installment of my milestones updates!

This is occurring at an opportune time in my progress, because I’ve hit the dreaded slowdown. Ironically, the changes I’m seeing in my body have never been more pronounced, but the scale has never been less cooperative. Good thing I have other ways of measuring the victories! You can skip the first 3 sections if you’re not into the recaps from the first 150 days. Otherwise, let the self-horn-tooting begin!

Achieved within first 71 days

Find a sports bra that fits so I can even work out. When I first started losing weight, I couldn’t get into any of the ones I could find.
Grab my foot from behind when my leg is bent at the knee in order to stretch out my thigh.
Walk at a 3.0 MPH pace without struggling. This feels SO SLOW now!
Make it up one flight of stairs without getting winded.
Stop snoring and start sleeping better.
Lose 10 lbs.
Lose 25 lbs.
Be under the weight limit to stand on the step stool.

Achieved between days 72 and 100

Sit on my own furniture.
Paint my own toe nails without contorting myself.
Close my towel the whole way around me when I get out of the shower.
Wear the oh-honey pair of pants I bought on April 11^th.
Wear the oh-honey shirt I bought on May 2^nd.
Walk a mile at 3.5 MPH. This is now my normal walking speed.
Get 3 miles on the fat burn setting on the elliptical.
Tie my shoes without having to sit down.
Go down a notch on my Vivo Fit band.
Lose 50 lbs.
Lose 10% of starting weight.
GOAL REDACTED.
Put ankle on opposite knee without having to use hands. …wow.
Fit into a restaurant booth.
Wear shirt size XL.
Do 200 miles in a month.

Achieved between days 100 and 150

Fit into my plaid rain coat. This sucker is baggy now!
Go down a half shoe size.
Wear a dress. I am officially a dress lover.
Fit comfortably into airplane seats. No problem. 🙂
GOAL REDACTED.
Get away from pre-diabetic sugar levels. You know something’s wrong with your head when you look forward to going back to see your doctor in four months with hopes of getting more blood work done.
Fold down the tray table from the seat in front of me on a plane.
Lose 25% from heaviest weight.
Lose 75 pounds.
Wear my ring on my middle finger.
Wear a swimsuit in public.
Hike up a mother-effing mountain, with mother-effing company.
Reach halfway point of weight-loss mission!**
Laugh-cried while trying on the “before” dress, which I put on by stepping through the neck hole.**
Purchased and wore high heels!**

Achieved between days 150 and 200

Fit into my red jacket.
Jogged 5 minutes without stopping.** On a total whim.
Jogged a mile without stopping. On a total whim.
Jogged 1.5 mile without stopping.**
Wore shirt size L.
Wore skinny jeans.**
Bent over and touch my toes without bending at the knee.**
Wore a skirt.**
Got too small for an oh-honey item of clothing.** BFD! BFD!
Crossed my legs.
Fit into only my side of the bench on Metro.
Did 225+ miles in a month.**
Hosted my first Diet Bet!**
This progress on my first Transformer (which I’ll be winning next week!):

Goals to be achieved

Jog in and complete a 5K.
Fit into one leg of my fat-girl gray pants.
Wear a single-digit dress size.
Wear a single-digit pants size.
No longer be in “overweight” category (BMI <25).
Wear shirt size M.
GOAL REDACTED.
Reach final weight goal.
GOAL REDACTED.
GOAL REDACTED.
GOAL REDACTED.
Get out of plus sizes.
Switch to the small Vivo Fit band.
Wear a belt.
See my feet over my belly when I look down (standing still).
Fit into roller coasters. I couldn’t do it at a theme park 2 years ago, and had to wait around for my friend to go through the line and ride it by herself — sucked for both of us. — I’m absolutely sure I could cross this off now, but I haven’t had the chance to test it yet, so it stays on the to-do list.
Do 250 miles in a month.

Watch this space.

*Some goals are too personal/embarrassing to publish, so I’m curating selectively.
**These were not on my list of goals, but they were notable milestones that I hit during this period.

October 7, 2015 by Life Can't Weight

DAY 198: Fat girl, skinny jeans

That’s right, y’all. Mama’s rockin’ skinny jeans today.

Probably not uncoincidentally, I got 4 more weight-loss affirmations — one from a new person, three from previous commenters — and was aggressively hit on by a stranger at Panera when I was in the middle of a business lunch with a co-worker. (Do guys try to pick up girls by asking for their Facebook profile pages now instead of their digits? Because that’s what happened. Zero smooth points, Panera Lurker Guy.)

And yeah, that’s right: I wore skinny jeans to work.

This has been a weird day.

I am finally starting to get comfortable with accepting compliments from people on my progress. It took a long time, but I’ve reached a place where I can actually own their praise and feel like I deserve it, and it has become part of what motivates me to keep going. The male attention, well… that’s always been uncomfortable, and I can feel it’s going to be a long while before I’m anywhere near OK with it.

My co-worker who was with me for that odd interaction laughed about it with me on our way back to the office, where we bumped in to another work friend who asked what was so funny. We told her what had happened, and then, the girls both started telling me I’d better get used to it, it’s going to keep happening, blah blah blah. I’ve always sort of felt on the outside of the whole “male gaze” phenomenon. I sympathized with my girlfriends who experienced unwanted attention, harassment, assault, and/or feared these things or worse. I always felt immune to it because who in their right mind was going to have any interest in directing any of that at a fat girl?

I guess that all changes when you start fitting into skinny jeans.

Of course, most of it is harmless and probably even well-intentioned. I’ve just always been an observer of it rather than the object of it. It’s still hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that random men are going to openly hit on me in public. I don’t really believe that yet, I just keep hearing from my (biased) girlfriends that it’s going to happen more and more.

This is why they should only make skinny jeans for skinny people! RFGs (Recovering Fat Girls) aren’t prepared for this part of the thin experience yet! Well, if it does continue to happen, I’ll have to start somehow programming my brain to think of it as another version of the flattering comments I’m finally starting to get used to.

Next up: leggings!

October 2, 2015 by Life Can't Weight

DAY 193: Eraced

On account of expected crazy rain this weekend, my 4.01K has been “postponed.”

I would be a liar if I said I wasn’t relieved. I never made it past the “run 2 miles” training session in the C25K program, and I’m feeling generally exhausted. I’ve been working too much at work and working too much at home, and mama needs some sleep. Plus, it’s nice to have a day of my weekend back to try and recoup before having to launch right into the next week. Even though it was the shortest distance race that I’ve ever heard of, I wasn’t ready for it, and I’m glad I don’t have to be mad at myself for either flaking out or not being able to run as much of it as I wanted to. Hopefully, if/by the time it’s rescheduled, I’ll be in better physical condition to meet my own expectations in it. (Equally hopefully, my schedule will permit me to participate on the new date!)

I’m also not disappointed that my race is off this weekend because… I think my heel spur is on the way out. It may have even already healed. With that terribly annoying injury potentially eliminated, I want to be careful not to resurrect it. It would probably be a good idea to give my feet a bit of a rest for a few more days.

By way of another quick update, the first Diet Bet I ever hosted recently closed, and I just barely eked out a win. Hosting well is no joke, and it wound up being more time consuming than I’d imagined, but that was because of my own meticulousness and the type of game it was. I think most people had a good time playing, though, and I know that several got close to their goals and/or busted through plateaus while playing, so that makes it all worth it! I had a lot of fun hosting (in spite of what may have just sounded like complaints0, and I look forward to being able to do it again before too long. For the near future, though, I’m taking a hiatus from DB.

I’m still in a kickstarter (that ends next week) and 2 transformers (of which one is ending in 2 weeks), which I feel I can handle because the monthly loss percentages are lower than the kickstarters, so I’m by no means leaving the community. For practical reasons, I have to take a break because I won’t be able to weigh in while traveling internationally late this month into early November. I also want to be able to enjoy that trip instead of worrying about being absent from a website, so it’s a good time for a sabbatical. Beyond that, judging by nothing but the way my body has changed over the last couple of weeks, I believe I’m in the midst of a change in fat-to-muscle ratio that accounts for the slowdown I’ve hit recently. That means I’m still losing fat, but it’s not reflecting as a loss on the scale because of the increased muscle mass. It’s fantastic, but not the right scenario in which to be betting money on averaging a 1% drop in weight every week.

NOTHING IS CHANGING, THOUGH! I’m still 100% in this. I will still be interacting on DB and I will still be blogging like a crazy old cat lady with stories to tell. More importantly, I will still be eating the right things and taking care of myself. I will fit into more oh-honey clothes. I will wear my new skinny jeans in public. I will shake my shit at Zumba. I will work my muscles. I will elevate my heart rate. I will get enough sleep. I will drink enough water. I will be BFF with Jiminy. I will have a happy birthday. I will lose inches. I will lose weight.

When my race is rescheduled, with any luck, I will jog it!

September 28, 2015 by Life Can't Weight

DAY 189: De-acquired tastes

The first time I seriously tried to lose weight, I never really kicked the sauce. I continued to binge-eat brownies, cookies, ice cream, cupcakes, candy, etc., that I bought on the sly at the grocery store. I also never fully kicked microwaveable meals out of my rotation; I toted Lean Cuisines, Lean Pockets, and other purportedly “healthy” frozen meals to work for lunches or ate them at home for dinner when I felt too lazy to cook. I was working just as hard at the gym as I am now — well, that’s arguable — but I was blowing it all up in the kitchen. It’s not surprising, then, that I used to go to bed at night and REGULARLY dream about stuffing my face with the “forbidden” stuff. It’s hilarious to admit it now, but I would routinely dream of gorging myself on endless banquet tables of cookies, and wake up feeling physically and mentally sick, but also relieved that it didn’t really happen! I just couldn’t seem to give up my sugar.

I don’t have a sweet tooth. I have a mouth full of ’em.

Or so I thought.

Something weird has happened over the past few months: I am suddenly less drawn to the dessert table. The few times that I do venture over there, I find I’m not as satisfied as I expected to be by what I consume. As recently as last week, I found myself completely uninterested in the wedding cake at the reception I went to. I just… didn’t eat any. (I’m pretty sure it’s a crime not to eat cake at a wedding, so the bride can never know I rebuffed her celebratory sweets!)

I DID partake in four other desserts while away:
-Gourmet chocolates
-Peanut butter-chocolate rolled oats bar (it was basically a no-bake cookie in bar form)
-3 mini cookie sundaes (“pizookies,” if you’re curious), split 50/50 with my friend
-A blizzard from Dairy Queen

The lab results were mixed:
-The chocolates were unsatisfying.
-The cookie bar was love in my mouth.
-The pizookies were heaven on earth.
-The blizzard was a disappointment.

It made me remember other surprising discoveries along these lines:
-My mom’s brownies suddenly tasted WAY TOO SWEET. I used to think that was only possible with port wines.
-My former TV companion, chocolate-peanut butter Häagen Dazs ice cream, also suddenly tastes a little too sweet.
-Tonight, I tasted a serving of goodies from my latest Nature Box order, and I can only describe them as funky-ass, crunchy cough syrup pellets. That’s not what I expected from whole-wheat chocolate chip cookies.

This made me wonder: Do tastes change with weight loss?

My infinitesimal internet research seems to imply that they do. Certainly, this is pronouncedly the case with people who had gastric bypass surgery. As someone who has not had that procedure, I’m not entirely sure how or why I might be experiencing this, but it does seem clear to me that there’s a correlation.

My completely unfounded, untested, and unresearched theory is that this is a byproduct of the initial detox period. Maybe what I was eating never really tasted good, and it was all chemical reactions happening in my brain’s pleasure center rather than a true enjoyment of food. Now that I know what actual food tastes like, the sugar-loaded stuff tastes all wrong to me. Or, maybe it tastes right, like what it actually is: mounds of sugar and unnatural compounds.

Regardless of the explanation — which I will continue to investigate — I am cool with it. I no longer feel like I’m missing out because I didn’t taste EVERY SINGLE CONFECTION in a given bakery. I don’t feel compelled to eat the cookies some courteous bastard brought to my meeting at work. I pay no mind to the cupcake place right next door to my office, the donut shop directly outside of my metro entrance, or the bag of white-chocolate-pumpkin-spice-covered pretzels sitting in a bag on my kitchen counter right now. My tastes changed, and so did my mentality.

Oh, and I’ve been sleeping like a baby.

I’d call that a win.

September 27, 2015 by Life Can't Weight

DAY 188: A tale of two weddings

Exactly one year ago today, I went to a wedding. I looked like this:

Last week, I went to another wedding. I looked like this:

Today, I tried on the dress from the wedding I went to last year. I looked like this:

I’m looking forward to trying on both again on the one-year anniversary of starting my weight-loss mission. I think I’ll look like this:

September 26, 2015 by Life Can't Weight

DAY 187: The right to bare arms

Somewhere along the line, losing weight stopped being my singular focus. That goal now shares equal billing with becoming athletic, being healthy, and feeling great.

I’ve only come to realize that recently. It’s been great that my mindset has shifted that way; it has allowed me to notice and appreciate the changes in my body beyond the shrinking I’m looking for. My legs are leaner and stronger. My shoulders are defined. My complexion is clear (and I’ve been told my skin is “glowing”). My butt is developing a more booty-licious shape. (Oh, yeah. I said it.) The coolest part, though, is what’s happening to my arms.

Remember my villain beard? I still absently stroke my collar bones, but I’ve added a new target: my arms. I run my fingers over the newly toned muscles that are poking out of them. I twist them into unnatural positions to admire their contours. I even gawk at them in mirrors on the rowing machines to marvel at the way the definition changes as different muscles are engaged. I’m probably gonna have bat wings the rest of my life, but the changes I’m seeing are so pronounced (to me) that I can’t help but stare at them. It’s like if I blink, they might go back to the way they were. What’s crazy is, they aren’t even done yet!

This may seem an unlikely transitional point, but it brings me to a frustrating experience I had at my new gym yesterday. I was doing my customary 15-minute warm-up on the elliptical, which usually nets me about 1.3 miles. I tend to speed up as I go, but it’s become my natural, comfortable pace rather than pushing. My legs just go. I had my normal gym gear on, the most important component of which is my headphones. Those are usually the universal symbol for DO NOT APPROACH, but they misfired last night. All of a sudden, I had a trainer standing beside my machine and moving her lips at me in a way that annoyingly did not sync up with what was playing in my ears. To be polite, I took out an ear bud and asked what she had said.

Trainer: You’re moving really fast! Do you always go that fast?
Me: I guess so. It doesn’t feel that fast.
Trainer: Do you keep up that pace the whole time? How do you do that?
Me: Well, I mean… have you SEEN these beastly legs? (Subtext: Go appreciate them from the other side of the gym.)
Trainer, missing the joke and the subtext: What else do you do at the gym?
Me: After this mile, I’ll go to the treadmill.
Trainer: The elliptical and the treadmill?!
Me: …Yeah…
Trainer: What else?
Me: …
Trainer: What else do you do at the gym?
Me: …I do arms every other day.
Trainer: On the machines?
Me: …Yeah…
Trainer: That’s it?!
Me, annoyed at this point from the prolonged interruption and then the inferred insult following the earlier praise: Yeah. That’s it.
Trainer: Wow. Well, come find me when you’re ready to do more.
Me, putting my ear bud back in: Oh, yeah, I’ll do that.

Interestingly, the gym happened to contact me via e-mail this morning with a random member satisfaction survey specifically about yesterday’s workout. They limited the “other” comments field to only 500 characters, so I had to sum up that entire interaction in an unreasonably small space, but I communicated that they really need to discourage their trainers from chatting people up while they’re working (not working OUT — working), especially if it’s to attempt to solicit new training clients by backhandedly insulting them, unintentionally or not. I’m sure this woman was well meaning and just misguided in her attempt to “help” me, but that was highly annoying. I told the gym that I found her approach aggressive, offensive, and inappropriate. I know she has no way of knowing it, but I’ve spent the last 6 months working hard at losing weight on my own, and I know what the fuck I’m doing. I don’t need some “expert” rando — who knows nothing about me — coming up to me and critiquing my apparently inadequate fitness regimen, least of all mid-workout. It’s bad enough when other gym people try to talk to me while I’m working out. Trainers should know better.

/end rant/

That being said, though, I think I’m doing just fine. My arms and collar bones certainly think so.

*smug villain-beard stroke*

September 10, 2015 by Life Can't Weight

DAY 171: Measurable success

I don’t really have enough content for a full blog post, but a lot of notable moments in my weight loss have happened just all of a sudden.

On August 30th, I signed up to run in a 4.01K (cute, huh?). This will be my first outdoor run event ever.

On September 2nd, I jogged on a treadmill for 5 minutes for the first time in 5 years.

On September 6th, I bought a shirt — that fits — in size L.

On Tuesday (September 8th), I wore a skirt to work.

Yesterday (September 9th), I jogged on a treadmill for a full mile without stopping (12 minutes) for the first time ever at that pace.

Today, I moved the closure of my ever-looser VivoFit band so that only one last notch is visible. After I make that final move, I’ll have to switch to the smaller band when this one becomes loose again.

All of these are HUGE milestones for me, and I have consistently surprised myself in the best possible ways as I’ve hit them. Oddly, the one I’m most stoked about is the VivoFit band. As I’ve mentioned several times, I am terrible at measuring myself. I do it once a month, and somehow, it doesn’t really reflect the changes I know are there through the losses on the scale, the way I look, the way I move, and the way my clothes (don’t) fit. One of the things I measure is my wrist, and since I started taking my measurements back when Vivo showed 4 notches, my incompetent measuring reflects only 1/4 inch lost. Clearly, that’s wrong; here’s the size the band was when I started:

Sooooo… not so much with the quarter inch. My ruler tells me the distance covered in the notches I moved over is actually close to 3/4 inch. My measuring tape tells me lies.

It’s nice to know that when I feel like my arms are slimming down, it’s because they are. Now, if only I had a VivoFit band for my calves, thighs, forearms, biceps, hips, waist, chest, butt, and neck.

Happy first day of football season to all, by the way! Can I interest you in one of the pumpkin oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I made and then brought to work like a good girl instead of devouring them all in the secrecy of my kitchen? 🙂

Cheers!

September 9, 2015 by Life Can't Weight

DAY 170: Sense of direction

There’s an idea — and a law of physics — that time only moves in one direction: forward.

And yet, our clocks and watches reset every day. Each morning, we get a new set of hours containing hundreds of chances for change. If you’re reading this blog, the thing you’re trying to change is probably measured on the scale.

The scale, commonly thought of as the enemy, is actually a nifty little device. It can — and does! — move backwards. Oftentimes, its moves backwards can feel a hell of a lot like time travel.

As the needle has moved a little less to the right every week that I weigh myself, I’ve gone back to old clothes, old feelings, and old memories associated with the number the scale shows me. I’m fitting into things I haven’t dared to even try on since my first job, since college, or since high school. I have all kinds of associations with different garments, like remembering seeing something on me in an old picture and wondering what the friends in the photo with me are doing now, or recalling when I bought the item, but never actually wore it anywhere. Going back through my closet takes me back to moments in my life when I was younger and more optimistic, and it strangely conjures up not feelings of nostalgia, but feelings of hopefulness.

I started my weight-loss mission with the goal of running away. I was going to put as much distance as possible between me and that ugly, ugly number the scale showed me when I stepped on it at my heaviest. I never wanted to see the needle anywhere near it, ever again.

Now, a very comfortable number of pounds past my halfway point, I am running towards something: my goal weight. I find I’m not looking at the distance between the needle and the weight of shame anymore; I’m looking at the distance between the needle and the weight of victory.

My thought is that this process compares nicely to the perspective you have when driving a car. The rear view mirror is very important because it shows you where you’ve been and what might be coming from behind that may put you in danger. The side mirrors are important because they let you look around and take stock of what’s happening in your periphery as you process and react to the changes in your environment. But there’s a reason the windshield is the largest viewing surface, and the one the driver is oriented towards: life only moves in one direction. All of the different views inform your **cringe** journey, but none of that matters if you don’t know where you’re going.

That’s why I’ve stopped running in evasion and started running in pursuit.

I’ll remember where I came from, but forget the way back there.

I’ll look around, but I’ll keep moving.

Eyes on the horizon!

September 7, 2015 by Life Can't Weight

DAY 168: Forget me not

It can be really easy to lose sight of who you were once you’ve lost so much of yourself physically.

Sometimes, I’ll be in the middle of one of my hours-long cook-a-thons during meal prep for the week, and I’ll have a sudden flashback to what that was like when I first started. I would have to take a couple of breaks to sit down and give my muscles and joints a rest. If I stood in one position too long, my left leg would start to go a little numb around the knee area and I’d either have to walk it off for a bit or just deal with it until I was done. (I probably should have talked to my doctor about that, but it stopped after I lost about 30 pounds, so I assume it’s nothing I should worry about now.) After my few hours in the kitchen, I would be down for the count for the rest of the day, usually with swollen feet and sore hips. That’s just from standing there!

I also sometimes remember the feeling of first getting up in the morning, not really feeling rested, and the discomfort of those first few rigid steps after coaxing myself out of bed.

I remember my walk to the metro taking 8-10 minutes longer in the morning because I had to stop and catch my breath at the top of those stairs on my route, and because I moved so much more slowly in general.

I remember trying to hide being winded while walking down the hall with anyone at work, and avoiding walking any more than down a hall with someone at work because it was too hard to hide being winded.

I remember getting out of the car after even just a short time driving and having to take the first several steps very, very slowly.

I remember always sticking to the shower curtain because there was no way to be in the shower without a part of me touching it.

I remember never untying my shoes because it was too much effort to get into a position to retie them.

I remember hating going shopping because nothing fit except the most horrendously ugly articles of clothing ever created.

I remember getting irritated when people would stop and hold the door open for me if I wasn’t that close to the door, because it made me feel like I had to rush to get to there, which made me lose my breath and feel embarrassed.

I remember driving to the grocery store two blocks away because walking was too exhausting.

I remember not wanting to go out on weekends because I only owned one pair of pants that fit, and I washed them on weekends so I could wear them to work again all week.

I remember not taking pictures when I really wanted to, because I didn’t want to see myself in them.

I remember avoiding travel, which is something that makes me happy, because it was too uncomfortable to sit on a plane or train.

I remember not wanting to go to the movies with anyone because I NEEDED both arm rests unless I wanted to twist myself up and feel the pain for hours afterwards.

I remember coming up with excuses not to see my friends or family whom I don’t often see because I was too ashamed of the weight, even though it would have made me happy to see them.

I remember hiding from the world because I had failed and therefore didn’t deserve to be happy.

I remember feeling guilty for not being happy. I had everything set up right so I could be, and I ruined it.

I remember feeling hopeless, like someone looking back on a life she hadn’t even lived yet.

I remember I never wanted to die, but I didn’t want to live.

—

I’ve only been at this for shy of 6 months, and I’m sure there are already things in this vein that I’ve forgotten. After all, none of this was pleasant to experience; who would want to remember it? I can’t believe I got myself into a situation where the above was my daily experience of life. Of course I was miserable.

Now, I’m replacing the bad memories with good ones.

—

I remember the first time I felt my bath towel close the whole way around my body.

I remember the first time a pair of workout pants became loose, then entirely too big for me.

I remember the first time I cracked 3 miles on the weight loss setting of the elliptical.

I remember the first time I flipped my mattress and changed my sheets, and realized I hadn’t changed my breathing at all.

I remember the looks on various people’s faces when they saw me for the first time since before I started losing weight.

I remember the first time I painted my toenails without straining. They were bold blue.

I remember the first time I rocked a dress at work. It was bold yellow.

I remember the first time I donated BAGS of old fat-girl clothes to charity. And now, the second.

I remember the first time I was walking with a co-worker outside of the office to get coffee, and I had to slow down.

I remember the first time I up and jogged for 5 minutes.

I remember the first time I felt capable of participating in an outdoor race. So I signed up for one.

I remember the first time I recognized myself in the mirror after all this time.

I remember the person I always was who’s been desperate to come out.

I remember she’s worth it.

August 20, 2015 by Life Can't Weight

DAY 150: Milestones update

It’s a milestone-numbered day, so it’s time for another milestones report! Moving things out of the “Goals to be achieved” section feels AWESOME! I can’t believe some of the earlier goals ever needed to be goals. Wow, was I in a bad way.

Any suggestions of goals to add are VERY welcome, so please share some of yours!