Tag Archives: progress

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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 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 168: Forget me not

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I remember she’s worth it.

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DAY 163: Working out is working out for me!

I had two BFD-NSVs at the gym today:

  1. I hit a personal best on the weight loss setting of the elliptical.  The weight loss setting is intervals for 28 minutes:  4 minutes on cross ramp 4 at low resistance, 4 minutes on cross ramp 10 (the highest level) at high resistance, repeat until a 5-minute cool-down (which I use as an opportunity to run like hell instead of to wind down).  It makes me sweat like a mofo while getting in cardio AND some toning in the legs, butt, and arms.  I usually net around 3 miles in the 33 minutes of exercise.  Tonight, I shattered my “usual” and beat my former personal best of 3.19 by .02 of a mile.  My new personal best:  3.21!  I’d love to work up to 3.25 by the end of the year.  It sounds like it should be easy, but it won’t be.  That extra .02, I KILLED for it.  I’m surprised I didn’t make the elliptical take off and fly away for all the noise it was making going at the top speed I hit!
  2. I jogged tonight.  I mean, REAL jogging.  I haven’t jogged more than 90 seconds in at least 5 years, so this is HUGE.  In the spring, I was doing a little jogging on the treadmill, but it always left me sore the next day — I was still too big to be putting that kind of stress on my joints.  All these pounds later, I’m finally working up the nerve to start visiting the treadmill in a non-walking capacity again.  Tonight was apparently the night.  I don’t know if it was the adrenaline from reaching my new elliptical PB or just that I was excited that I got the gym earlier than usual and had some extra time to squeeze in more cardio before it was time to go home, but I looked at the treadmill tonight and had a you-don’t-look-so-tough moment.  “I’m gonna jog for five minutes,” I told myself.  And then, I just did it.  WHAT?

Something kind of weird/cool linked my workouts tonight.  First of all, it’s worth noting that they almost didn’t happen; I let myself fall victim to gymtimidation more often than I should.  Tonight, there was a row of skinny girls casually using the ellipticals while flipping through fashion magazines and not breaking a sweat, all without headphones in.  I might have immediately abandoned my plans for the elliptical tonight had the ONE that was still available not been one with the moving handlebars.  I told myself, “You know what?  Let’s show these pretty girls what a real workout looks like.”

They were gone 5 minutes later.

Then, of course, a headphoneless DUDE got on the machine RIGHT BESIDE ME and started his work-out.  I started feeling self-conscious again, but then I thought, “Oh, you wanna get all up next to me while I’m working here?  OK, fella.  I’m gonna outlast you.”

And I did.

In the last 2 minutes of my run, which were the most intense because I had decided to break my previous PB at that point, another pretty girl hopped on beside me.  This time, I grinned smugly to my sweaty reflection in the machine and amped my legs into overdrive.  At the end of the workout, all self-consciousness was gone.  When I saw 3.21 on the display, I raised my arms in the air in a victory pose.  I didn’t even notice if anyone looked at me funny for doing that.

Right after that, I grabbed a treadmill all the way against the wall, with one person directly in front of me doing her own run.  I noticed 2 minutes into my jog that that person was raising her arms in a victory pose every 60 seconds.  Oddly, that helped me keep going.

Oh, and the patron saint of women was watching me the whole time from the tray on my treadmill:

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Someone had left a Rosie the Riveter sticker behind — with the backing still covering the adhesive portion.  After my successful jog, I stuck it in the front cover of my exercise log book (pictured).

OK, universe.  I hear you!  I’m raising my own bar.

Let’s lose some more weight, shall we?

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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 150: Milestones update

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

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

Achieved within first 71 days

  1. Find a sports bra that fits so I can even work out. When I first started losing weight, I couldn’t get into any of the ones I could find.  I’ve gone down a size since first meeting this goal.
  2. Grab my foot from behind when my leg is bent at the knee in order to stretch out my thigh.
  3. Walk at a 3.0 MPH pace without struggling.
  4. Make it up one flight of stairs without getting winded.
  5. Stop snoring and start sleeping better.
  6. Lose 10 lbs.
  7. Lose 25 lbs.
  8. Be under the weight limit to stand on the step stool.

Achieved between days 72 and 100

  1. Sit on my own furniture. The dining chairs and patio seating I own have weight limits that I exceeded before I purchased them.
  2. Paint my own toe nails without contorting myself.  
  3. Close my towel the whole way around me when I get out of the shower.  
  4. Wear the oh-honey pair of pants I bought on April 11th.
  5. Wear the oh-honey shirt I bought on May 2nd.   
  6. Walk a mile at 3.5 MPH.
  7. Get 3 miles on the fat burn setting on the elliptical.   
  8. Tie my shoes without having to sit down.
  9. Go down a notch on my Vivo Fit band.   
  10. Lose 50 lbs.
  11. Lose 10% of starting weight.   
  12. GOAL REDACTED.
  13. Put ankle on opposite knee without having to use hands.   
  14. Fit into a restaurant booth.  
  15. Wear shirt size XL.
  16. Do 200 miles in a month.

Achieved between days 100 and 150

  1. Fit into my plaid rain coat.**
  2. Go down a half shoe size.  Tragic timing, because I had just bought several pairs of heels in my old size, but I am NOT complaining!
  3. Wear a dress.  This has happened multiple times, in multiple dresses.  In fact, it’s mid-happen.
  4. Fit comfortably into airplane seats.
  5. GOAL REDACTED.
  6. Get away from pre-diabetic sugar levels.  Like whoa!
  7. Fold down the tray table from the seat in front of me on a plane.
  8. Lose 25% from heaviest weight.
  9. Lose 75 pounds.  This is the last figure of pounds I will likely post!
  10. Wear my ring on my middle finger.
  11. Wear a swimsuit in public.  Two total swimsuits, four total times.**
  12. Hike up a mother-effing mountain, with mother-effing company.  This is a point of emphasis because I would have been too embarrassed to be huffing and puffing beside someone while doing anything remotely work-out-y even a month ago.**
  13. Reach halfway point of weight-loss mission!**
  14. Laugh-cry while trying on the “before” dress, which I put on by stepping through the neck hole.**
  15. Purchased and wore high heels!  I own 3 new pairs, one of which is in my new half-size down.  I wear them EVERY DAY at work now, and my feet feel just fine.  They actually HELP with that persistent jerk of a heel spur I still have.  Between the dresses and the heels, I am loving feeling girly!  I never thought I’d see the day.**
  16. Also, this progress on my DietBet Transformer:**
    progress

Goals to be achieved

  1. Jog in and complete a 5K.
  2. Fit into my red jacket.
  3. Fit into one leg of my fat-girl gray pants.
  4. Wear a single-digit dress size.
  5. Wear a single-digit pants size.
  6. No longer be in “overweight” category (BMI <25).
  7. Wear shirt size L.
  8. Wear shirt size M.
  9. GOAL REDACTED.
  10. Reach final weight goal.
  11. GOAL REDACTED.
  12. GOAL REDACTED.
  13. GOAL REDACTED.
  14. Get out of plus sizes.
  15. Switch to the small Vivo Fit band.
  16. Wear a belt.
  17. Jog a mile without stopping.
  18. Fit into only my side of the bench on Metro. I have actually hit this, but the true test will be with a winter coat on, so I’m not crossing it off the list yet.
  19. Cross my legs. I’ve never done this in my life.
  20. See my feet over my belly when I look down (standing still).
  21. Fit into roller coasters. I couldn’t do it at a theme park 2 years ago, and had to wait around for my friend to go through the line and ride it by herself — sucked for both of us. — I haven’t been to an amusement park since, so haven’t had the opportunity to test this out yet, but I suspect I could cross this off now.
  22. Do 250 miles in a month.

Watch this space.

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

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DAY 149: Sore loser

Somehow, I have lost a respectable amount of weight over the past two weeks of ZERO GYM TIME WHATSOEVER.  Now that things are calm again and I am home bound for the next month, it’s past time to reincorporate and reprioritize my workouts into my daily routine.  So, last night, I went to the gym for the first time since August 5th.

WOW, you can lose strength quickly.

I did my usual self-designed circuit of arm weights, and everything felt noticeably heavier.  On top of that, I am sore today!  I haven’t been sore since the very first week I started doing strength training, and that was when everything was considerably lighter and I was considerably more out of shape.  I hope the weight I got rid of in gym absentia was really fat and not muscle mass!  (I mean, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t, but still.)  I’ve actually felt strangely guilty for having lost weight during my two weeks of vacation brain and OKCupid-ing, like I was somehow cheating by managing to drop the pounds while putting in almost no effort.  There’s fun, satisfaction, and pride in having earned it, ya know?  It feels a little cheap when it just goes away because you hit your steps goal.  NOT THAT I’M COMPLAINING.  OH MY GOD, BODY, DON’T CHANGE A THING.

Well, my arms have exactly one day to recover, because they’re getting werqed tomorrow, too.  Also tomorrow, I’m reuniting with the elliptical for the first time in 2 weeks.  I copped out yesterday because I had to get home by a certain time to meet a friend, and I avoided losing time to the shower by choosing strength over cardio.  😉

Incidentally, the friend I met up with last night has been effusive lately with the weight-loss praise.  She’s been telling me I’m pretty, I look great, I’m inspiring her, I’m this, I’m that, blah blah blah.  Well, it’s no secret that I don’t accept compliments well, particularly when it’s in person and from someone I care about, so she called me out on it when we were hanging out.  This is someone who usually struggles with being direct, and says it’s something she’s learning from me how to do.   This is also someone who has allowed me into her scary spaces, and I have not done the same with her.  I was cognizant of all of that in the moment, and thinking that I owed her the chance to understand me the way I understand her, and I thought, “You know what? It’s fearless time. Let’s go there.”

We ended up talking about the weight loss, the emotional sides of it, and why I’m so miserably awful at taking praise.  We also talked about dating, and how she couldn’t understand why I was shutting down and not trying harder with guys.  She kept saying I would have to get comfortable with attention from men because I’m only going to get more attractive as I lose weight and gain confidence, so why not get used to it with someone I’m not that into so the stakes stay low?  She said that in her experience, it’s empowering to snag a man when she’s not feeling that great about herself.

When she finished her rap, I explained that I know myself, and her approach is not gonna work for me.  First of all, I’m not gonna play with someone’s emotions to temporarily feel marginally better about myself physically (and that actually doesn’t do it for me, anyway), so that’s off the table.  Second of all, I told her I’ve been busting my ass the last few months trying to fall in love with myself.  It sounds corny as hell, but I need that to come from me, not from some man.  I’m the only one who’s gonna be with me until the day I die, and if I can’t truly say I love myself, what does it matter how many men said they did?  I haven’t felt like my real self in years.  YEARS.  I’m just now rediscovering my own worth.  It’s too fragile and too delicate for me to be misdirecting that emotional energy into another person, and getting my self-perception all tangled up in his perception of me.  I am NOT there, and I’m not gonna force myself to get there.  When I’m ready, I’ll know.  I trust that.  When I’m ready but I’m dragging my feet, I’ll know that, too, and I’ll push myself.  I trust that.  I’ve taught myself how.

Somehow, I got through that entire conversation without crying.  I got dangerously close, but I didn’t cry.  Crying is for people who are sad.  I am not sad.  I am hopeful.

When that part of the conversation came to a close, my friend looked at me, smiled, and said, “I’m not worried about you.”

I distinctly remember touching my collar bones when I replied, “I’m not worried about me, either.”

So, the emotional muscles are also getting werqed, but at least it doesn’t hurt anymore.

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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.

by

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.

by

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!