Tag Archives: motivation

by

DAY 461: Schizophrenic wishes

I wish I were the type of person who felt empowered enough to embrace the plus-sized body I’ve had since my teenage years.

I wish I could truly believe that big can be beautiful, and that I could be beautiful at any size.

I wish I had conviction behind mentally telling the world to fuck off for treating me and anyone else differently because of weight.

I wish I wouldn’t freeze in mortification at the thought of a seatbelt extender on an airplane or roller coaster, even though those days are behind me.

I wish I could permanently silence the nagging voice in the back of my mind that never allows me to 100% focus on a conversation if I’m sitting in a chair that has the slightest chance of breaking under me.

I wish the memories of a morbidly obese life would stop haunting me like threatening ghosts that can reanimate at any time.

I wish I had an easy relationship with mirrors, which are lying when I look bad and lying when I look good.

I wish I felt confident enough to have a take-it-or-leave-it attitude toward others who judge me for being fat.

I wish I could really be OK if they choose “leave it.”

I wish I knew how to overcome my own shame and disgust at my body and allow myself to have a relationship.

I wish I believed inner beauty was enough.

I wish I didn’t have to be so strong to be happy.

I wish I didn’t have to work so hard to be strong.

I wish I didn’t have to hide myself to work so hard.

I wish I didn’t think I had to hide myself.

I wish society didn’t make me think I ever had to hide myself.

I wish I didn’t kind of agree with society.

I wish I had always been thin.

I wish I didn’t believe being thin was the key to everything.

I wish I could start over again.

I wish I didn’t have to start over again from here.

I wish to be better.

I wish to do better.

I wish to empower myself through succeeding.

by

DAY 409: Change of a dress

The crime:  overindulging and under-exercising for several weeks.

The punishment:  sizing out of a garment in the wrong direction.

Welp, that’s done.  I won’t be wearing the dress I had bought for the wedding this weekend, to the wedding this weekend.

I guess I’ll have to find some other occasion, because damn it, I will rock that dress.  I will wear it somewhere fabulous with the hot-pink heels that sass it up even more.  Then I will post (faceless) photos of it and everyone will be like, “OOOOOH, I get it now.”

…Probably.

Anyway, I have been doing well with making up lost ground ever since I snapped out of my awful lapse on my mission, and I’ve already undone a significant amount of the damage.  I won’t feel over it until I’m under where I had been, but I am very pleased with the progress.  It’s never a bad time to remind yourself that you’re awesome.

I’m awesome.  Awesome and fearless.

And I’m coming for you, sexy dress.  I can’t wait to get inside you.  #clothesporn

*drops mic*

by

DAY 408: Wake up and smell the regret

I think I got a total of 45 minutes of sleep last night.

Why?  Because I went on an epic binge before bed.

Why?  No idea.

What I do know is, it wasn’t worth it.

However, I can say that for the first time ever, I was at the gym at 4:58 in the morning with the early risers.  I got my pick of the machines without needing to wait for the meatheads to get out of the way.  I even, for the first time in a while, got on an elliptical for the long haul.  It was awesome, but frankly, very gassy.  Every time I started up a “hill” on the work-out setting, I was like that thing your car does when it’s low on fuel:  putputput pfffft.  With only 12 minutes left of my hour, I had to jump off of the machine and succumb to runner’s trots and last night’s mistakes.  (Listen, I know it’s not lady like to talk about farting and pooping, but I am not a lady at the gym.  I’m barely human.  I’m a freaking red-faced, sweat-drenched animal.)  You’re welcome for this story.

I’m not really a morning person; my VivoFit shows I get my deepest sleep in the hours before my alarm goes off at 7 AM.  Maybe I’m pampered, but I really bank on my 8-9 hours of sleep, and in order to get up early enough in the morning to work out, shower, and get ready for work, would require me to go to bed at like 9 PM in order to get enough rest.  But, given how much less stressful it actually was to work out because the gym was virtually empty, and how much quicker I was able to get through my weights circuit for the same reason, it may be worth trying a change in routine for a week to see how it goes.  It may also shake up my body’s rhythm enough to spark a drop in weight.

Walking home afterwards, “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus came on my iPod.  I downloaded it last year as an unlikely weight-loss song I would listen to on long walks around my neighborhood in the cool evenings after hot days in the summer.  It’s a kind of sappy song from the days in Miley’s career before she came in like a wrecking ball and started dancing with Molly.  Cheesy though it may be, it does ring true:

There’s always gonna be another mountain


I’m always gonna wanna make it move

Always gonna be an uphill battle

Sometimes I’m gonna have to lose

Ain’t about how fast I get there

Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side

It’s the climb

So, I’m gonna put the terrible choices of last night and rumspringa and everything else behind me where they belong, and keep on climbing.  It’s hard, but it’s the good type of hard.  I think I’m finally feeling in control again.

by

DAY 395: The Skinny on Obesity

One of my tried-and-true tricks for helping myself refocus when I need a reminder of why losing weight is THE priority, is to watch some of the videos that helped positively reinforce my mindset at the very beginning.  I’ve mentioned this before in specific reference to the British series “Fat Doctor” and the role it played in shaping my work early on.  (I still recommend that one, particularly the episode I’ve linked to in my 12/1/15 entry.)  My current rut is the first time I’ve gained back a great deal of weight, and it feels the worst because of the milestone(s) I undid by allowing that to happen.  So, I’ve been doing a lot of self-cheerleading to recreate my positive attitude and remind myself that I’ve done it before, therefore, I can do it again.

Several weeks ago, I discovered a series of documentary-style videos by the University of California called The Skinny on Obesity.  I watched the whole set in the dead of winter when it was hard to convince myself that going outside was really necessary, and the motivation I got out of it was enough to last me a few weeks.  Not only was it interesting and informative, but it was presented in a very clear and matter-of-fact way that was easy to follow.  I learned a lot from these videos and have already returned to them many times for more inspiration and education.  Altogether, the entire suite takes just about an hour to watch, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.  However, if I had to recommend only one video, it would be this one.  More than anything I’ve ever read, watched, or heard, this presents information in such a clear way that it made me feel like I understand food at a basic level for the first time in all of my years on Earth.  Watching this video in particular, it was like a series of light bulbs going off.  Just eye-opening stuff.

Soooo, partially in thanks to the lessons these shorts have re-taught me, I’m on a vegetarian diet this week.  I’ve done this a few times since beginning my mission over a year ago, and it’s consistently yielded good results.  I’m not totally after just a drop on the scale this time, though; I’m in a position where I actually need to re-detox — which I remember the symptoms of and can feel happening — and reset the way I think about and consume food.  My plan of attack in the gym this week is light:  just arm weights and maybe a mile here or there on the elliptical if the mood takes me, or in the unlikely event that I don’t make my steps on a given day.  Next week, I intend to ramp it up.

One reason I’m letting myself off the hook physically is that I don’t want to overwhelm myself with so many readjustments that I’m setting myself up for further frustrations when I fall short, which is bound to happen when you try to change every single thing in one fell swoop.  Unfortunately, though, the self-hook-letting-off is primarily out of responsibility:  I have a knee injury.  I say that without knowing what it actually is; I just know I have some occasional shooting pain and there’s a lot of cracking and sustained soreness going on.  I want to get below the lowest weight I had hit and see if that’s enough to alleviate it, but without overexerting it in the process.  So, elliptical only so it doesn’t put too much pressure on my joints, and not until next week once I’ve got the food part on lock.  Also, I’m in a really shitty mood this week, so it’s just not the time to be forcing myself into stuff I know I’ll be too petulant to actually do, which will only create disappointment in myself.  (Ahh, self-awareness.)

Something that was reinforced to me through this whole lost month I just had is that all the pieces I had delicately set up to keep myself on track are very important.  It’s not just the big, obvious parts, like meal planning and working out; it’s also the small forms of positive reinforcement through podcasts, articles, videos, and writing in this blog.  It all matters, so it all needs to happen.  Lesson re-learned.

On that note, I hope you’ll watch the videos I plugged and find some motivation in them for yourself.  If nothing else, the educational value is incredible, so share far and wide!

by

DAY 334: Winning winter

My body has changed a lot in the past 11 months.  The loss of weight has also meant a loss of insulation, and I’m feeling cold easily for the first time in many winters.  I need a higher temperature in my home and office, and more blankets on my bed when I go to sleep.  The silver lining is that I’m getting prolonged use out of those pants I’ve been shrinking out of:  I need the extra space at the waist band to accommodate leggings or a second pair of pants underneath!

To boot, I’m actually enjoying feeling so cold.  Not only is it a reminder of the pounds I’ve banished, but I’ve also read that being exposed to chilly temperatures increases calorie burns — and therefore weight loss — because of the extra work the body has to do to keep itself warm.  Its a win-win!

Keeping these things in mind has really helped me keep focused on staying active on days when it would be easier to stay inside, cozy on the couch, consuming some sinful TV shows and even more sinful food and drink choices.  On Presidents Day earlier this week, we got some snow and ice that I was tempted to use as an excuse to stay inside and indulge.  But I was on a 3-week streak of exceeding my daily VivoFit steps goal, and I was committed to making the streak last at least through the end of February.  When I thought about having to bundle up in my faux fur-lined boots, hat, gloves, scarf, and coat just to walk to the gym, remove it all, get sweaty, and then put all my winter gear directly ON that sweat to come back home, I wondered if it was really worth the hassle… for about 5 seconds.  The angry red arrow Jiminy was flashing at me didn’t allow me to entertain that silly question for long.  In an instant, I changed my thinking to the bizarrely positive reasons to trudge out into the harsh conditions (It’s cold out there [and that’s good]!  You need your steps!), and off I went.  My streak is still alive.

Working out has also become a stress release.  Instead of capitulating to stress like I used to, I now channel the negative energy into high-octane exercise that burns calories and frees my mind.  I have had surprising moments of clarity about confusing or nerve-racking situations I find myself in while testing the limits of the elliptical.  Physical activity as an outlet for emotional pressure: what a concept!  Here I am, living the myth.

This isn’t to say that all of this is suddenly rote or even easy.  I still have to convince myself that I have to work out on any given day, and then I have to internally cheerlead myself to the end of the workout for the majority of the time I’m moving.  I’m just getting better at it, and I now know I have reason to believe that the arguments I have for doing the hard things are good ones.  There’s certainly been improvement, and much positive reinforcement in the form of visible results, but it’s still hard.

Someone recently asked me what my “trick” was for the success I’ve had on my mission.  I had a negative knee-jerk reaction to that question; there’s no freaking trick to this, for cryin’ out loud.  It’s called I work hard.  All the time.  Weight loss and healthy living are NEVER not on my mind.  That’s not hyperbole, people; I am NEVER not thinking about those things.  They factor into every trivial decision I make throughout the day, from which way I will walk to the metro in the morning (long way or short way: which will fit best into my exercise plan for the day?) to what time I go to sleep at night (how tired am I vs. at what bedtime am I most likely to get a quality night’s sleep?).  It ALL ties in for me.  I’ve made it that way.  That’s the only way this works.  If it were as simple as having a trick, we’d all be thin and healthy.

The person who asked me that question probably just phrased it poorly and was only wondering if I had any tips.  At least, that’s what I’m choosing to believe.  But please, as a Recovering Fat Girl, I’m begging you:  don’t ever ask someone who is obviously in the process of dropping a lot of weight, what her trick is.  Semantics matter here.  Implying there’s some shortcut or some magic at work takes away from that person’s hard work and trivializes the act of drastically transforming her life as if it were some kind of effortless gimmick.  Affirmations and praise are fantastic, but if you’re uncomfortable asking the question you mean to ask, just don’t ask it.  Better that than to dishonor someone’s all-consuming, seemingly endless quest to save her own life.

Whoops!  Got a little hot under the collar there.

Fortunately, that kills calories, too.

Stay warm!

 

 

by

DAY 324: The big reveal

I issued myself a dare a while back.  The dare was that when this photo happened, I would stop being coy and secretive about the numbers.  I was REEEEEALLY pushing myself on the whole fearless thing.

OK, past-me.  Here goes.

 

 

 

Screen Shot 2016-02-10 at 8.31.24 PM

That, ladies and gentlemen, is my current weight.  I JUST SHARED MY WEIGHT.

And that’s ONEDERLAND.

That makes TWO BFDs.

Now for the rest of the numbers:

  • Starting weight (March 7th, 2015):  303 pounds*
  • Diet Bet starting weight (April 17th, 2015):  279.2 pounds**
  • Final goal weight:  140 pounds (doctor approved!)  (Well, the official line is that I’ll see how 140 feels.  If there’s more to do at that point, I’ll do it.)

Um, I haven’t been in the 190s since I was on my way up the scale in my sophomore year of college, which was the worst year of my life.  It’s when all kinds of horrible things happened and I coped with the sadness and stress by eating everything in sight.  No one who has met me since I was 19 has ever seen me this size.  Ever.  That’s BFD number three.

For the official record, I saw 199 on the scale for the first time 2 weeks back, but it was a morning scale read, which doesn’t count in my mind.  I’ve even seen 198 in the morning, but again, it doesn’t count.  I’m going to say something crazy now, which is that yesterday, I felt 199.  So tonight at the gym, I weighed myself, and for the first time in over a decade, I got to move the 50-pound weight to 150 instead of 200.  I’m in the 150 club.  That’s BFD number four.

Finally, I have unhidden my Diet Bet weight chart on my profile.  Don’t believe me?  Here’s the proof.  That’s BFD number five.

Screen Shot 2016-02-10 at 8.36.19 PM

 

And now that that’s all out in the open… rest of sentence.

If you need me, I’ll be walking in a winter onederland.

🙂

FOOTNOTES/DISCLAIMERS/FURTHER EXPLANATIONS:

*I remember my weight on this date because it was the night before I left on an international trip and I weighed myself for the first time in weeks because I was worried about spending hours in an uncomfortably small airplane seat.  It was my heaviest weight in my life.  Yeah, that ride did suck; not only was I physically uncomfortable, but I had that number emblazoned on my brain the entire time.  Luckily, I came back having magically shed nearly 10 pounds (without trying), and I let that be my momentum.  The conscious choice to lose it all forever was on March 23rd, a few days after getting home from said trip.  At my doctor’s appointment on March 26th, I was at 289.

**This may look like a lot to lose within a short period, but it just falls the fuck off when you’re 303 pounds and suddenly adopt the healthy lifestyle your body has always wanted.  It’s also a lot of water weight.  I wasn’t doing anything extreme; I’ve always been level-headed and healthy in my approach.  I’m going to do this right from start to finish.  Promise.

by

DAY 322: Monu-MENTAL

I’m taking an improv class.  The people are upbeat, fun, silly, and just looking for a good experience.  I find myself smiling throughout the class from the great creative outlet and clever social exchanges with peers, and I leave feeling energized and happy.  (Thanks for bankrolling my fun, Diet Bet!)

The sort of strange thing is that the class meets in an elementary school library.  (The school is, of course, closed during our sessions.)  It’s probably good juju for us to be subliminally reminded of our free-spirited inner children by the colorful decorations and toys around the room, but some of the set-up is a little impractical.  When our instructor wants us to do seated scenes, the only chairs at our disposal are meant for 5-year-old butts, not adult ones.  For someone who used to love ass-planting, the idea of sitting in one of these flimsy little seats was an, um, uncomfortable prospect.

This weekend, there was no way around it:  chair games galore.  I couldn’t shake the gif-style image my brain conjured up of me sitting on one of these children’s desk chairs and having it crumble to smithereens beneath my mass, and the thought of that horrified me.  I really wanted to participate in everything, but I was hanging back and hoping to abstain unnoticed to avoid busting a chair and embarrassing myself beyond redemption.

And then I realized:  I am a 31-year-old woman afraid of a piece of furniture.  CHILDREN’S furniture.

Dafuq?  That’s not how a fearless person acts.

So I shook it off.  I stopped thinking about how I’m probably the heaviest person in the class — certainly the heaviest girl.  I reminded myself that I’ve lost over 100 pounds, and if I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t even be in this class entertaining the possibility of putting my ass on that tiny chair.  I put my mental gif into my “mind vice,” à la Jack Donaghy, and crushed it.  I told myself it would be fine.

And I sat in a chair, like I’ve done a million times in my life, and did not crush it.

It was fine.

I will be fine.

But I still keep having nuisance thoughts creep into my mind.  It’s such a weird psychological place to be in, suddenly feeling a spike of nervousness about things I can do now, but that I used to not be able to do when I was at my biggest.  When I took a bath last week and could lie in the tub with both of my arms at my side because they fit now — that was a weird naked triumph.  When I was charging to work this morning and realized I was flying through the turnstiles to get to the train without making contact with the sides of it, I had an involuntary flashback to when that was impossible.  When a stranger sat beside me on the train and spent the whole ride trying to gingerly keep her body piled on her side of the line separating our seats, I remembered when that girl was me.  I don’t think people who have never dealt with significant weight loss ever think about this stuff.  I wonder if I always will?

Later today, I caught my reflection in the mirror of the bathroom at the office and saw a cheek bone on my face.  A cheek bone.  I started whipping my face around back and forth, averting my eyes and then quickly zooming them back to look at my reflection, as if trying to catch my cheek bone off-guard before it could run away.  It was still there.  And it has a twin on the other side of my face.

I couldn’t believe it.

I was about to reach up and touch my cheek bones to make sure they were real, when someone came out of one of the bathroom stalls. It was a co-worker I rarely see, but who has made a few subtle remarks on my weight loss before.  She caught me in a weird moment, posed with my hands half-raised to my cheeks and a strange grin on my face.

Instead of commenting on what must have been an odd thing to see, she looked at me and paid me an awesome compliment, with a huge smile of her own:  “You look great!”

It turned into a 5-minute conversation about her own struggle with weight loss.  She asked me how I had been feeling since I’ve been changing, and I told her I felt better than I looked, and that my doctor was looking forward to not recognizing me soon.  She shared a doctor story of her own:  her doctor recently told her that she needs to lose 30 pounds.  She took hearing that really hard; she had a baby last year and is now back to her pre-pregnancy weight and happy with her size.  I told her she didn’t have 30 pounds to lose and she looked wonderful to me!  She said she didn’t think so, either; she agreed with her doctor that she could stand to lose maybe 15 pounds, but 30 sounded extreme to her.  It was deflating.  She said that ever since then, she’s really struggled with motivation.  She started asking me how I got started, so I shared a few things with her.  Even when she was describing her tough experience at her doctor’s office, she was smiling at me.  She ended the conversation with, “What you’re doing is inspiring me.”

That was AMAZING.  Honestly, I thought she didn’t even like me; turns out, she was kind of… studying me?  All this time, I was misinterpreting her glances and expressions.  I never would have known she was quietly cheering me on if not for that conversation.

That’s when I thought of the biggest change in myself:  being able to talk about it.  I am now talking about it with real people, in real life, out loud.  I don’t get all awkward or squirmy, and I don’t avoid the compliments anymore.  And guess what?  That makes people share more of their own experiences, and it becomes a way to help them.  It leads to conversations where you learn something more about someone you were previously making bad assumptions about, and it teaches you something about your place in your environment.

The personal growth during the physical shrinking is the best part of this.  It’s better than losing 100 pounds, it’s better than collar bones, it’s better than running a mile without stopping, it’s better than facing down a child’s chair, it’s better than breezing through a turnstile untouched, it’s better than fitting on less than half of a bench on public transportation, and it’s better than visible cheek bones.  But it took achieving all of those milestones to get here and finally start to see something I’ve been trying to find all along:  my true self.

The next person who asks me how I feel may just make me cry, and that’s the most open and honest answer I could possibly give to that question.

by

DAY 308: Snow daze

Snow my god!  Snowtastrophe!  SNOWBLIVION!!!!  I’m more tired of tortured snow puns than I thought possible.  Snowzilla?  REALLY?  I thought it couldn’t get worse than Snowpocalypse and Snowmageddon.  How about snowverreaction?  Tossing “snow” in to replace the first syllable of some cataclysmic word is not clever.  I can handle the transportation paralysis and forced hibernation; it’s the criminal level of forced portmanteaus I can’t handle.

Please stop.  You’re doing unspeakable things to English.  What did English ever do to you?!  SNOW YOUR ROLL.  (That’s how it’s done.)

Anyway, back to my life as a fat girl, which I realize is the actual purpose of this blog…

I’m pleased and a little shocked to report that after 4 nights surrounded by mountains of homemade cookies at my parents’ house, I had not a single one.  NOT ONE.  I should emphasize that I was not only surrounded by the cookies, but surrounded by people eating them.  FOUR DAYS OF PEOPLE EATING DELICIOUS COOKIES AND I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A BITE.  I leave here in about an hour, and I have no plans to break that streak.  It was so difficult, and I wanted to eat all of them, which is why I knew I couldn’t have one.  I can’t believe it.  I escaped without surrendering!

A huge reason for that is that I took a few minutes to make preparations, like organizing a snack survival kit for all 4 days, before leaving my place.  I also made sure I got in all of my steps according to Jiminy in spite of being off routine and needing to make an extra effort to work out.  This involved scoring a week-long pass to a local gym so I could get legitimate workouts in since exercising outside wasn’t really on the menu this time.  So, yes, it took a lot of additional work to pull off what is second nature to me when I’m in my natural habitat, but make no mistake:  it was still overwhelmingly a mental struggle.  I had to constantly remind myself that I’m on a mission here, and there is no pause button.  I have impending weigh-ins and momentum that should not be compromised.  I haven’t had that much trouble with temptation since before I started losing the weight, and I couldn’t believe how hard this was.  I had to tell myself over and over again that I had a choice:  have a cookie and be mad at myself, or resist them for this entire visit and be immensely proud.  I chose pride, and I feel AWESOME!

Along the way, I had a couple of memorable weight-loss moments that impacted me and became part of my arsenal of resistance.  (WOW, that sounds militant!)  First, when the snow stopped on Saturday, my mom and I shoveled out the driveway and de-snowed my and my brother’s cars that were parked there.  Even with two of us, it took an hour to finish because of how much snow we had to clean up.  With all that work, I never got winded or tired, and I kept thinking to the last time I had to dig out my car and how laborious it was.  All I had to do was clean the snow off of my car and shovel a little bit behind the rear wheels so I could back out of my outdoor parking space at my apartment.  That’s something that shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes with the quantity of snow I was dealing with at the time (maybe 2″), but it took nearly a half hour.  I went inside afterwards feeling completely exhausted and was covered in snow from being so big that there was no way to brush off my vehicle without leaning against it and getting snow all over me.  That was then.  This year, my body never made contact with the cars when I was cleaning them off, and I actually enjoyed shoveling for the productive workout it gave me.

At my grandfather’s party yesterday, I made the mistake of wearing a sleeveless dress in the dead of winter.  At a certain point, one of my mom’s cousins, who’s a massage therapist, came up to me privately to say hi.  He didn’t waste a lot of time getting to,  “I don’t know if this is a polite thing to bring up with a woman, but…” and went into how amazing and toned my arms look.  He said that as a massage therapist, he notices these things, but I must be doing some work on my arms.  He asked more about it and said to keep doing whatever I’m doing, because the effect is obvious and looks great.  That made me feel pretty rad!

Beyond that, people kept telling me how happy and confident I seemed, and that kind of threw me because I don’t really think I was doing anything to give anyone that impression.  It’s not like I was front and center, but pretty much everyone I talked to make some remark about that.  No one asked about the weight loss, but I could tell that sometimes they were waiting for me to say something about it (and I didn’t).  I guess I’m carrying myself differently and just projecting this stuff.  And the 3″ heels that made me a respectable height probably helped and would give the illusion of confidence to most people.  😉  Oh, and then I ate a piece of the birthday cake, and was fine with that choice/had planned to do it, anyway.

It’s about time for me to be getting ready to hit the road, so I’m gonna wrap this up here.  Not an earth-shattering update this time, but I had to record for posterity that it is in fact possible for me to spend this much time in an environment inundated with my trigger foods and not cave to them.  It’s possible because IT HAPPENED.  Woo!

by

DAY 305: ‘Snow big deal

Loooooooooong story short, I skipped town ahead of the massive, massive blizzard expected to pummel the eastern seaboard this weekend.  I was going to be visiting my family this weekend anyway for my grandfather’s 90th birthday celebration (!), so I just left two days earlier than planned to get out ahead of the snow.

When I realized the weather was going to be bad enough to make me need to change my plans, my biggest concern was figuring out how I was going to manage to work out while away.  I can manage 2 days (per the original itinerary) away from the gym without panicking about losing my routine, but five days with no gym time at this particular moment, when working out outside will be difficult or impossible and I had no mental preparation for such a stretch without exercise, was really stressing me.  But not for long — I didn’t have time for that.

Quickly, I got organized.  I traveled to my parents’ house with my homemade soup for every day I’d be here, AM and PM snacks measured out in baggies for each day, and some perishable food items that I can cook for all of us that would’ve gone bad if left in my fridge.  I optimistically tossed my gym clothes and shoes, along with my fitness journal, into my bag and sped away yesterday afternoon.

Today, while sitting on my butt in front of the TV with my dad, I got really antsy.  I could feel that I needed to move.  I have a suuuuuuuuuuper old one-week guest pass at the gym I used to go to when I lived here and was attempting weight loss several years ago, so I thought I’d dust it off and see whether I could use it myself since I’m no longer a member there.  I took it to the gym, and even though they knew it was an old pass that was really no longer valid, I was able to finagle one week of access out of them.  Gym conundrum resolved.

I did my arm weights and my old cardio staple today.  Because this gym is laid out differently from the one I belong to where I live, the mirrors allow me to see myself from unusual angles.  When I was pumping that iron, I couldn’t believe how many muscles I could see in my arms and shoulders!  Then, when I was powering through on the elliptical, I worked up a sweat I haven’t achieved in months.  It was a very satisfying workout, and I’m proud of myself for listening to my restless body and figuring out a way to get in my burn while totally out of my element because of the elements.  I have such peace of mind knowing that I have a way to exercise every day, and that I removed the option of excuses from my path for how ever many days  — well, up to 7 — before I can safely go back.

When I got back from the gym, my dad gave me a strange look and said, “You look taller.”

Yeah, I thought I was talking taller today.  Stride of pride.

by

DAY 302: A shot in the arm

I had my follow-up appointment with my doctor today for a progress check on my weight loss.  Again, she commended me for my efforts and affirmed that they were paying off.  She told me she didn’t think we needed to do blood work to check on anything; my weight was going down, my vitals were strong, and from our conversation, she knew I was doing everything right.  “Your body loves you right now,” she told me with a massive smile.

We talked a little bit about what I was doing, how many steps I’m getting these days, and whether I was sticking with my goal weight as my target.  She updated my file on the computer and recommended another check-up in another 6 months.  I know that in that moment, we were both imagining where I’d be at that point.  I said, “I’ll be just about done!”  She said, “I won’t even recognize you!”

When I told her I had lost 100 pounds since starting this madness, I received another high-five and another “I’m proud of you” to go with the ones I collected from her last time I was there.  She complemented those with commendations for checking in with her as an accountability measure rather than to ask for diet pills or other prescription shortcuts.  As we were wrapping up, she asked me if I had gotten the flu shot this year. I told her I had already been sick with something flu-adjacent this year, and she said something like, “There are several strains this year.  It would still be good to get one.  It’s the only thing I can offer you!”  I laughed, decided it was a good idea, and indulged her need to feel like she had helped her patient.  And man, for the first time I can remember, the shot actually kinda hurt.  Thanks a lot, enormous arm muscles/possibly sadistic nurse.

Talking about this in medical terms, from a purely scientific standpoint, really helps me.  My doctor is able to confirm from a whole other angle that what I’m doing is working, and she tells me with amazement in her voice how great I’m doing by not looking for quick fixes.  She’s proud of me for tackling my problems head on, for not going on crash diets, and for pushing myself physically without endangering my health.  I went straight to the gym after seeing her, and I KILLED it from start to finish.  That woman always reminds me how powerful I am!

So, once again, my doctor gave me a shot in the arm.  And then, she gave me a literal shot in the arm.

This whole little weight-loss gamble?  Worth a shot.