Tag Archives: clothes

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DAY 288: Middle ground

My experience with weight loss has been that the part you want to disappear the most is the most stubborn.  It’s probably an optical illusion, or just that that part is so large to begin with that it’s just a longer slog to work it off, but it’s agonizing waiting to see it finally start to shrink.  For some women, that part is the hips, butt, or thighs.  For this woman, it’s the stomach.

My stomach is misnamed.  It’s more of an asshole.

It forces my toes into an endless game of peek-a-boo.  It makes a mockery of my rack by sticking out farther.  It smothers my lap.  It stretches my shirts, makes buttons struggle to close around it, and makes skirts look ridiculous on me.  It’s the antagonist in this story, and it must go.

Well, finally — finally! — it has started giving up ground.  All of a sudden, my jacket covers it with as much ease as it covers the rest of my torso.  I’m sliding into jeans without unbuttoning or unzipping them.  I’m wearing September’s oh-honey pants.  The biggest victory of all?  My love handles are more like let’s-just-be-friends handles.

It’s been a long time coming, but this stomach is starting to get smaller!

Sooooo, I have to enact that promise I made to myself for when this day finally came:  start the ab work.

I did a few ab exercises on New Year’s Day, just for the hell of it, and I am still sore four days later.  It’s no surprise to me, but I have no core strength.  The bad news:  this is going to suck.  The good news:  this is going to burn A LOT of calories.

I’m coming for you, stomach!

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DAY 271: Before pants

I pulled these out today.  They’re my Lane Bryant (gag) size 24 (vomit) “nice” pants that are on my milestones aspirations list as the ones I want to be able to fit into one leg of some day soon.

Here’s where we’re at on progress to goal:

 

For the record, I did try to fit into one leg today just to see, and it almost actually happened.  If my calves weren’t Superman size, I think it would have been a go.  I’ll run the experiment again in a couple more lost pants sizes and see.

In the present… check out all that extra fabric!

The first photo is with the pants zipped up and pulled as high up as they will go (which is just below my bust), and pulled all the way to the side (NOT the front).  The photo is turned in the wrong direction in this post, but I noticed it after uploading and am far too lazy to fix it.  😉

The photo in the middle is with the pants pulled up to where they’re supposed to be with the extra fabric pulled forward to make them fit my form.

The final photo is the bouquet of fabric in my hand as seen from my vantage point after I took the middle picture in the mirror.

I’ve been feeling really raggedy this week, so I’m glad I did this.  I’ve donated several boxes of clothing every month since July or August, and this is the only article of clothing that no longer fits — aside from the before dress — that I’ve kept.  I’ve tried these pants on a couple of times since starting my weight loss, but the loss hasn’t been as striking before today.  Today, it was impossible for them to stay on; they just fell right to the floor, no matter how many ways I bent or twisted to anchor the waist band onto a curve so they’d at least hang off me.  I can’t believe these were my go-to professional attire just 9 months ago.  They look ridiculous now, both on me and off.

I still have time to make the weight goal I set for myself for the end of this year, and I may have found the motivation I need to get me there.  I think I’ll keep my sad pants out in plain sight for a while.

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DAY 249: Thanks.

Yesterday was amazing.

I ate cheese.  I ate chips.  I ate salsa.  I ate crackers.  I ate artichoke dip.  I ate turkey.  I ate stuffing.  I ate mashed potatoes.  I ate rice.  I ate bread.  I ate salad.  I ate green bean casserole.  I ate cheesecake.  I ate peanut butter chocolate chip cookie bars.

I have no fear or regrets about any of that.

Before the meal (in the early morning), I took myself on a 4-mile walk around my parents’ incredibly hilly neighborhood and through a nearby park.  In the park, I twice passed a VERY good-looking guy in an orange shirt who was jogging.  The first time we passed each other, we gave each other a polite-stranger smile.  The second time, I was power-walking up a steep hill and he was jogging down it.  He was smiling already when he saw me, and I involuntarily gave him a MASSIVE grin when I saw him smiling, which made him smile bigger and laugh, which made me laugh.  I couldn’t tell if it was silly or flirtatious, or maybe both, but I kept hoping to run into him again.  I didn’t.  Maybe I will some other time I’m getting in my outdoor cardio at my parents’ house.

I spent the rest of the day cooking.

I ate my meal wearing an outfit composed of entirely new clothes, which wouldn’t have had a chance of fitting me last Thanksgiving.

I ate one moderate serving of everything, because I’ve taught myself when — and how — to stop.  No seconds.  No hunger.

I gave my family the public version of what I’m thankful for.  This is the private version:

I’m thankful that the beach towel I used to have to use to dry off after showering at their house is now comically large for that purpose, and I’ll have to ask my mom for a different towel.

I’m thankful that the toilet on the main floor of the house isn’t working properly, and I have to either go upstairs or downstairs every time I need to use the bathroom.

I’m thankful that I no longer have to pause 2 or 3 times on my way back up the stairs from the basement to secretly catch my breath, so as not to arrive at the top of the steps all winded and embarrassed.

I’m thankful that my parents live in the middle of nothing but steep hills of various heights that I can walk around.  I can feel the effects of that in my legs and butt, and it hurts so good.

I’m thankful that I could wake up this morning and eat cereal when everyone else was eating the traditional leftover pie for breakfast.

Even if I don’t lose any weight this week, I’m thankful for all of the above, because it proves to me that I’ve passed this test of will at a challenging moment of my mission that coincides with a challenging moment on the calendar.

Being mentally back in the saddle is by far the most important thing.  The weight loss will come.  I believe that again.

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DAY 244: Ranty pants

I had several paragraphs of a completely different post all typed up, and then something happened that changed my train of thought.  A friend on a quest to lose 20 pounds (at least half of which is vanity weight) group texted me and two of her other friends to announce what a GREAT workout she’d just had.

I’m not proud of the fact that I found this deeply annoying, or that my immediate reaction was silencing my phone and turning it screen-down on the couch beside me without responding to my friend, but that’s what happened.

Some of my irritation is because I’m putting unfair expectations on this person.  Just because my weight-loss M.O. is not talking about it in person doesn’t mean she shouldn’t.  It also doesn’t mean she’s bragging (even though she kind of was); she’s just giving herself congratulations in a group of people whose support she ought to be able to count on.  She and I have tip-toed around the subject of my progress on more than one occasion, and she’s even volunteered that I’ve inspired her to take charge of her own mission, so why not check in with her so-called friend who helped her take that step?

More of my irritation is that this girl has like no work to do.  It’s easy to be motivated and enthusiastic when you only have 20 pounds to lose.  If that was all I had to do, I’d have been done by now.  Several times.  So, yeah, this is my jealousy coming out in the form of frustration.  I still have more than 20 pounds left to go.  She’s going to totally complete her mission before I’m done with the second half of mine.  I know it’s selfish, but I can’t help it.  I’d kill to have only 20 pounds to lose.

MOST of my irritation is that I’m reacting this way.  It should motivate me to go get in a killer workout of my own.  It should make me proud that I helped her get there in some small way.  It should make me genuinely happy for my friend, especially because I know firsthand how hard this process is, and how good it feels to totally crush a workout.  Yet it doesn’t.  It just makes me kind of bitter.

I think this is the ugly side of why I haven’t been so keen to talk about my weight loss with people in my real life.

Luckily (?), I’ve been on a shopping bender all weekend.  My purchases have included some much-needed new clothes, as well as some oh-honey articles for the next size down.  I couldn’t afford it by any stretch of the imagination, and the whole point of these shopping trips was supposed to be holiday shopping for other people, but I came home with hundreds of dollars of stuff to hang in my own closet.  (I did get some gifts for the people on my list!  And… moderate exercise?  **bats eyelashes**)  Among my buys are 3 pairs of business pants that I can’t freaking wait to wear.  It’s expensive and slightly reckless, but the method of having to work in order to play with my new toys has been working for me.

I’ve clearly replaced one compulsion (eating like shit) with another (shopping).  That’s another ugly part of my personality:  compulsion.  The good news is, it is possible to change compulsive behaviors.  It’s just really hard.

Which is why support is important.

I’ll have to try harder to give it.  Others’ weight-loss experiences are not mine, and aren’t about me.  It’s not enough for me to learn to accept praise; I’m also apparently going to need to learn to give it to someone who’s actually asking for it.

Damn self-improvement.

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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!

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DAY 188: A tale of two weddings

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

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

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

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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:

ecstatic

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DAY 162: Thanks again, universe

Five.  That’s how many people commented on my weight loss today.  FIVE.

Co-worker #1:  “Have you lost more weight?  You look so good!”  (woman)
Co-worker #2:  “Are you getting smaller?  You look like you’ve lost weight!” (woman)
Co-worker #3:  “You’re looking so good lately.  I’m jealous.”  (woman)
Co-worker #4:  “Hey, girl, you look GOOD!  Whatever you’re doing, it’s working.  How much weight have you lost?”  (woman)
Co-worker #5:  “So… uh… have you been doing something different lately?” (man)

Side note:  It’s so funny how differently men and women broach the subject.  Women just go for it, like, “Work it, girl!” Men speak in euphemisms.  I think weight is the ONLY conversation topic where I can say I’ve experienced that.  It’s typically the reverse.  (I know gender dynamics in the workplace are the main factor here, but I can still find that amusing.  It’s adorable to watch my male colleagues squirm while trying to find a way to compliment me without risking a breach of HR policies.)

Anyway, the universe once again heard my outcries of frustration and sent me five reminders of why I’m doing this.  I need to not get tripped up on what may or may not happen in the future chapters of my weight loss.  I did that on a previous go-around, and I let it derail me.  Not this time.  What happens in the future is up to me, just like everything that has happened up until this point.  I let my exhaustion get the better of me yesterday, and ever since I had my little ranty moment, I haven’t given it much further thought.

What was it about today, though?  It’s so funny how I go for stretches of time with no one making a peep about my weight loss progress, and then, BAM!, five in one day.  I have officially lost track of how many people have remarked or what they’ve said (unless I wrote that stuff down in this blog).  I mean, I look like I’m wearing my big sister’s clothes these days because the most recent duds I bought are now hanging on me, but I don’t know why that just suddenly happened.  Case in point:  that oh-honey shirt I bought back in May is now loose to the point that the torso fabric no longer hugs my stomach and my bra is now visible through the arm holes when I move my arms.  Maybe this is a classic case of proportion shifts happening in the place of significant weight loss, and it’s my trade-off for the small losses on the scale recently.  Too bad I’ll never know because I’m such an inexplicably incompetent body measurer!

Either way, whatever.  I’ll take it.  I’d like to once again thank the universe for patting me on my pretty little head when I felt like an ugly little mess.

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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 104: Off track(ing)

For the past 2 weeks, I violated one of the Dieter’s Ten Commandments:  I abandoned tracking.

At first, it wasn’t intentional. I was out of town two weeks ago and not preparing my own meals, so it became impossible/too annoying to do my usual food logging on My Fitness Pal.  After I got back, I used it once to calculate if I would be within my calorie restrictions based on my meal ideas for that week, then didn’t touch it at all the rest of the week.  (I do the same exact meal plan every day over a 7-day period so I don’t have to reinvent the wheel every day, and so I can cook once a week and just reheat like a champ the other days.  This is definitely the way to go.)

This past week, I didn’t log a single thing.  I didn’t even nutritionally test drive my meal plan before the weekly cooking extravaganza like I usually do.

I don’t consider this falling off the wagon because, well, I didn’t fall off the wagon.  In fact, the second week was more of a conscious decision from the I-wonder voice in my head.  “I wonder if you could keep control of yourself without tracking every single thing you ingest this week,” it taunted me.  That voice has evicted the one that used to tell me I could eat whatever I wanted today because it was the end of the world; the diet would start on a tomorrow that never came.  The I-wonder voice challenges me with things like, “I wonder if you can make it 150 steps in the next 60 seconds” when I’m on the elliptical and “I wonder if you’re ready to add 5 pounds of weights to this machine now” when I’m lifting.  I always pass its little tests.  So, I accepted this challenge, too.

Here’s your full disclosure now:  I had a mini ice cream on Thursday night and I had 3 cookies at a rooftop fireworks viewing party yesterday evening.  I would have admitted this, anyway, just via tracking rather than in long form.  (Writing it out still took less time than tracking it on My Fitness Pal would have!)  The ice cream, I would have had, anyway.  I bought it 2 weeks ago and planned to have it on the 1st of the new month *if* I nailed my mileage goal for June.  I did, so I did.  Oh, and I have a second container waiting in my freezer for some future time when I feel like it.  The cookies, I had only planned on having one and I ate three instead.  Here’s how worried I am about that, by the way; the old me would have kept eating them until she couldn’t remember how many cookies there were.  Translation:  I trust myself, and I’mma swagger about it all over this blog post.

So, did I get too cocky?  Did I give myself too long a leash too soon?  Is this the beginning of a slippery slope?

Well, I lost a total of 6.6 pounds during those two weeks, so… no.  Another victory for the I-wonder voice!

That said, I am now returning to tracking.  I still trust myself, and I clearly still have an appalling amount of ego about it, but I actually kind of like tracking.  Besides, it’s another metric and another piece that fits into the overall process.  I like knowing what I’m taking in every day, and I especially like being able to look back at previous weeks where I had exceptionally high or low weight-loss numbers and being able to tell between food and exercise what contributed to that.  However, thanks to this little experiment, I have developed a new muscle, which is the mental muscle of being able to gauge what an appropriate portion is, approximately.

I plan to continue tracking to the bitter end of this “journey” (God, I hate that euphemism — I’m sure I’ll over-explain that in some future post), but at least I’ve proven to I-wonder that I can go without that crutch when necessary.  For this to be a success long after the losing process is over, that’s an important thing to know.  Yay!