Tag Archives: control

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DAY 240: The humbling stumbling

Since my weight loss became noticeable and the compliments started coming, I’ve often been asked the question, “How are you doing it?”  My answer is always some variation of, “Well, basically, I cook all my own meals and go to the gym at least 4 times a week.”  I guess that is basically how I’ve been doing it, but man, there’s so much more than that going on.

This is on my mind right now because after what ended up being a 5-week hiatus, I’m finally getting back on track.  I’m surprised how much I forgot about how rocky the start to this whole weight-loss deal was!  I wouldn’t say it’s exactly like starting over; my mentality is nowhere near as fragile as it was at the beginning, I understand things now that I hadn’t yet learned then, my improved fitness level at this stage allows me to do more now than then, etc.  There are some big similarities, though, as I re-establish my routine.  That’s such a simple sentence, but the word “routine” hides a very complex list of crap.

Energy
In my most recent post before this one, I whined about feeling depleted and not feeling rested after nights of low-quality sleep.  I feel less energetic getting in only 4 miles per day than I did when I was consistently hitting 8 or 9, which included daily movements and grueling work-outs.  That’s not counterintuitive; being more physically active creates a higher sustained level of energy and contributes to sounder sleeping.  A steady metabolic rate from a constant flow of nutrients (and WATER!) has the same effects.  For the first time in a long time, I woke up this morning feeling as if I had slept the night before.  I got restorative, quality sleep.  AND I WANT MORE.  So I gotta move.

Eating
Staying on top of the consumption part of this became so mechanized for me that I started taking for granted how much work it was to reach that point.  Training myself to ignore pangs of hunger while my body was adjusting to the 5 small meals per day I take in was a real challenge.  When I was finally conditioned to that pattern, I never felt hungry.  No, really:  I never felt hungry.  Even in the few periods of this weight-loss experience when I was imperfect with my intake, I never strayed from the good eating habits with portions and timing that I set up early on.  The last several weeks, I was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off.  I ate when and what I could, not when and what I should.  It sent my metabolism into a tailspin and pretty much deprogrammed it.  Getting back on track with the regular feeding times (like an animal — because my life is a zoo!) has again proven challenging, just as it was at the very beginning.  Feeling hungry sucks!  Fortunately, I have the knowledge that I succeeded at this once before, and therefore I know I will get to the other side again.  Note:  it would be much easier if pumpkin-spice-yogurt-covered pretzels didn’t exist.

Exercising
I crapped out on the gym two days ago after writing that I planned to go that evening, but I did go last night.  Admittedly, it wasn’t the high-intensity cardio work-out I needed, but I did resume my arm weights.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t like before when I missed 2 weeks of gym time and had major soreness after my first time back, but I do feel it today in a way I haven’t for quite some time.  I kind of like it, though.  It means it’s working.

Elephanting (I would have said “Weight” here, but why destroy a good alliteration pattern?)
Instead of punking out and not submitting my weight for the third round of the Transformer Diet Bet I’m currently in, I bit the bullet and owned up to my miss this time.  I have dug myself into a pretty big hole with the last month of recklessness, but with a lot of hard work, I still have a chance to come back and win round 4.  Regardless of whether I regain my footing in time to win this round, the next round, or the final round, I will make damn sure I win the overall bet.  There’s the many pounds of damage to undo, plus the ground I would have had to cover anyway.  It’s going to be tough — especially with Thanksgiving and time spent at my parents’ (read:  away from the gym again) thrown into the middle of this — but I have to find a way to rise to this.  I’m even considering joining another Diet Bet for extra support and motivation, but I haven’t fully jumped on my own bandwagon of belief that I can actually LOSE weight over the holidays.  Decisions, decisions….

This is a moment where I’m really glad I have this blog to reread.  It was never as simple as cooking everything for myself and getting to the gym regularly.  It was planning nutritious meals, finding the time to cook and apportion all of them in advance, separating my professional and personal stresses from my mission, putting myself first, getting support through writing on here and interacting on Diet Bet, consecrating time to work out, pushing myself through tough workouts and celebrating myself for making it, knowing when to up the weights I’m lifting or increase the speed I’m running, learning to resist the parade of sugar and carbs sitting in the open at work all day, scheduling and sticking to meal times, diverting money to replace my wardrobe, ensuring I got enough sleep, and learning to accept the praise and validations of others for all my hard work.  There is no scenario in the world where it would be acceptable to rattle off that entire list to someone who asked me what I’m doing to lose weight, but let’s get real for a minute:  it’s all of the above and more.  I’m spelling all of that out in recognition of all the effort it takes to really make this machine operate on all cylinders.  It’s never as easy as it sounds.

That’s a little bit why I’m cutting myself some slack here.  My recent stumble sucks, yeah, and it was very humbling.  I’m frustrated with myself, and disappointed that it caused me to lose a round of my DB, and even a little nervous about the situation I’ve put myself in.  However, this is NOT a defeat, and it’s not insurmountable.  Self care is still the priority, and that means not making me my own enemy.

All this to say, my work is cut out for me.  Time to test the ol’ mettle.  I think it’ll stand up.  After all, the girl responsible for this

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is also responsible for this.

transformer1

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DAY 238: Peek-a-boo!

I’M ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!

Full disclosure:  possibly the biggest reason why I haven’t posted in so long is that counting the days since my last update was such a chore!  How sad is that??

It’s been a super, super packed last 5 weeks.  Fall is always my busiest season because it’s my favorite season, so I tend to fill it with more things that make me happy.  First of all, my birthday was in mid-October, so that happened.  A few days after that, I left the country for two weeks of travel.  I returned from that to a VERY full plate at work which fully consumed me up until even today, and over the weekend that just ended, I hosted a dinner party at my house whose menu was entirely pumpkin-themed — and homemade.

Needless to say, between the complete lack of time, the travel, and the general overbookedness of my life the last month plus, my fitness routine pretty much jumped off a cliff.  I have weighed myself once since I got back, but I really don’t even remember what number the scale said; I only registered that, not surprisingly, I had gained a few pounds since the last time I weighed in for anything.

I am stressed and tired.  I haven’t seen the inside of a gym in over a month.  I have gorged myself on desserts, café drinks, and unhealthy restaurant food.  I have dropped the ball with meal and snack prep (until this week — phew!).  I’ve spent a fuck-ton of money on all of the above.  And, oh yeah, it bears repeating that I GAINED WEIGHT.

Now here’s the really weird part:  I’m OK with that.

I knew what I was doing as I was doing it.  I consciously chose to eat cupcakes, ice cream, chocolate, and so on instead of being extra vigilant with my diet to compensate for the impossibility of going to the gym.  I had a burst of uncontrolled living life as it happens, and ya know what?  That’s what typical people do, I hear.  It felt great to feel like a normal human for a bit.

It also felt pretty gross.

My energy levels are SOOOOOOOOOOOOO low.  I found that while I was on vacation, I consistently got exhausted — not a little bit tired, but honestly just completely wiped out — around 2 PM every day from A) not eating at consistent intervals throughout the day, and B) having totally erratic bouts of exercise.  Being off of that game for 2 weeks and returning to a moment where I’d so overcommitted myself to professional and personal events that it prevented me from taking care of myself and returning immediately to my healthy lifestyle meant I started eating on the fly again, which meant the return of those nasty chemicals.  I’ve started experiencing cravings again, and having to fight with myself not to indulge.  I’ve felt desperately hungry from irregular eating, which makes me eat too much when the time for food finally comes.  I’ve been short tempered and irritable.  The inertia from inactivity makes me feel lazy about going to the gym, and makes me actually not WANT to go.  The combination of not eating or working out properly has affected the quality of my sleep.  I’ve been feeling draggy and getting headaches.  I feel a step away from disgusting.

That’s exactly why I know I must resume my routine.  NOW.

Because of the weight gain, I won’t win my transformer round that weighs out today/tomorrow.  I hate that.  Hate, hate, hate that.  I liked looking at my DietBet profile and seeing a perfect streak of nothing but wins.  I’ve ruined that.  I can still win the 6-month bet, though… and I fully intend to.

I came to work today with my survival kit all prepared:  lunch box packed with AM snack, lunch, and PM snack; backpack filled with gym clothes.  As the old cliché goes, this whole thing is more mental than physical.  All I have to do is physically act on what my mind knows will lead to success, and I can fix this and still hit my year-end goal for the weight loss.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

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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!

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DAY 161: Ready for fall

We had a lovely teaser of fall weather last week:  low humidity, bright sunshine, comfortable temps, and general pleasantness.  I took a few extra walks outside, opened all the windows in my apartment, hit the pool, traveled home the long way from work, ate on patios, and rotated through almost my entire robust collection of sunglasses.  It was pretty much perfect.

Now, it’s all gross and humid again, and it’s like… I JUST WANT IT TO BE OVER.

Which is kind of how I’m starting to feel about this whole losing weight thing.

My progress has been excruciatingly slow these last 3 weeks.  I always knew that would happen — I’m actually surprised it didn’t happen sooner — so I’ve been braced for it for months, actually.  I’m also a little skeptical that this is the slow-down; I think it’s a fake-out.

  • The week of 8/10 was my first week back from Seattle, and I was dragging ass like whoa.  I didn’t hit the gym at all, so no wonder I dropped under 2 pounds.  I’m lucky I dropped anything.
  • The week of 8/17, I picked my gym routine back up, but it was also restaurant week, and I indulged.  Three times.  Again, no wonder I dropped under 2 pounds.  (Really, it’s kind of surprising I lost any weight either of those weeks.)
  • This past week, I again lost a modest amount of weight, even though I can’t account for why.  (Then again, this process makes sense less often than it doesn’t, so I’m not twisting my brain into a pretzel trying to figure it out.)  I was in the gym exactly as planned, 5 of 7 days, and exceeded my steps by a lot every single day.  It’s probably just my body readjusting to this pace of exercise, or that I wasn’t eating enough on the fruit/veggies/fiber fronts.  I’ve tweaked my meals for this week to account for that in hopes of upping my game a bit.

So, to recap, I have lost exactly the same amount of weight each week for the past 3:  1.8 pounds.  The three-week grand total is 5.4 pounds, which I dropped in a single week early on.  Thinking about it that way is frustrating (which is why I haven’t thought about it that way until typing this), but a loss is a loss is a loss.  I’m not going to complain for having lost 1.8 pounds, especially considering the fact that for 2 of those 3 weeks, it came at very little cost of effort.

AND YET…

I just want it to be over.

The lifting and the ellipticaling and the treadmilling and the perfect food balancing and the OBSESSIVE step monitoring and the weight checking and the pushing through the foot paining and the UGH.  Make it STOP.  I’m TIRED.

I have valued this experience in ways I haven’t shared.  I have learned so much about myself, about other people, about health, and about life from my little self-overhaul, and I never imagined the volume of profound lessons I would learn simply by going all in on losing weight.  I am a better person for it in every way, and I know that.  I’m also not done in any sense.  I’m not done on the scale, I’m not done mentally, and I’m not losing focus or otherwise checking out.  If anything, I’m more committed to this mission every week than I was the week before.  So, still going strong?  Well, yeah.  No plans to change that.

The thing I think I’m really grappling with is, now that I’m entering territory I haven’t seen in many years, am I going to be able to master the post-weight loss?  I was getting in the shower after a long day outside, which included a lot of exercises inside and outside of the gym, and I just thought to myself, “I never want to do this again.”  Not the work I’d done that particular day, but this process.  This process whose infinite value I just raved about.  Don’t want to repeat it.  Ever.

It’s great and it’s rewarding and it can even be fun, but for the love of EVERYTHING, it is TEDIOUS.  It is TAXING.  It is PERSONAL.  It is HARD WORK.  It rewires your thinking to put yourself first, and it makes you feel conflicted for being selfish while knowing you’re doing the right thing.  It takes SO MUCH TIME away from the other parts of your life because there’s the getting to the gym, and the working out at the gym, and the getting home from the gym, and the meal planning, and the meal prepping, and the meal eating, and the BLAHBLAHBLAH.

And, while I’m actually enjoying myself in real time, I’m starting to get a little bit nervous about what happens next.  Am I going to have to give up all of my free time for the rest of my life, just to maintain health and fitness?  Am I going to be so focused and obsessed with that that there’s no room for anything or anyone else?  I know I’m getting ahead of myself, but this whole process has only worked BECAUSE I’ve gotten ahead of myself.  So, the question is:  How the hell do you prepare for thin life when all you’ve ever known is fat or working on it??

I guess it’s like anything else and you just figure it out.  So I will.  But ugh.

Is it fall yet?

P.S.  I’m hosting my first Diet Bet game!  As a group, we’re pooling our daily miles to travel around an exotic part of the world together.  This is the second in our series of as many DBs as it takes to “see” everything we want to see in the world.  If you’re getting a little restless like me and need more community support than you do monetary motivation, this is the group for you — it’s just a $10 bet.  We start tomorrow!  Join We Run the World here!

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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 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.