In the past week, three people have separately commented that I look taller.
The first time was a fluke; I chalked it up to their not having seen me in a while.
The second time was a strange coincidence; I figured it was the optical illusion of a thinning-out middle.
The third time made me actually think, “hmm… am I taller?”
So tonight, I measured myself, and… I’m half an inch taller. I measured again and got the same result. Um???
Am I standing up straighter from the lack of extra gravitational pull? Have all the upper body exercises started reversing years of hunching-induced buffalo hump and actually helped lengthen my neck? Did the half shoe size I lost reapply itself to my height? Have all the measuring sticks been lying for decades?
I don’t know. It’s a mystery. The weight-loss twilight zone is alive and well.
My eyes are glitching, and it’s breaking my brain.
In a casual conversation with a coworker last week, I mentioned in an offhand way that I’m “still a big girl”. When she began her reply to that part of the conversation, she opened with, “First of all, no one sees you as a big girl. You know that, right?” It blew my entire mind hearing that.
No one sees me as a big girl.
…Except me.
I do double and triple takes in store windows and mirrors when I catch my reflection unexpectedly. It doesn’t compute that I’m the person I’m seeing in there. But at the same time, when I look at myself deliberately, all I can see are the parts that I’m still not happy with — or I’m newly unhappy with.
Stomach still big. Fingers still chubby. Upper arms and inner thighs carrying loose skin. Ass shapeless. Chest saggy.
Maybe lifelong fatties are destined to never be satisfied with how they look. Yet somehow, I’m still thrilled with the results from a data standpoint.
The night I came home from work after that conversation with my coworker, I realized that I’d lost more than 35 pounds in the time my coworkers have known me. This means that not only have they never known me not in transition, but they never knew me as THE big girl.
I further realized that no one who meets me from this point forward will be meeting an obese person.
Now that it’s full-on summer, I find myself without comfortable sleepwear that fits. In one of my periodic wardrobe culls yesterday, I found some old t-shirts and tank tops that I have had forever and never been able to wear… except that they’re loose in the upper torso. That’s when it hit me that I hardly ever wear anything other than sports bras nowadays, and it hit me that actually, I haven’t been filling out my regular bras lately.
This prompted a bra shopping trip where I tried on exactly a dozen bras, just trying to identify my size now. I was truly shocked to discover I’ve lost another cup size and TWO more band sizes, depending on which bra you ask of the two I came home with. All told, I’ve dropped from a 44DD to a 38C/36D. What. I have some bras in those sizes lying around at home from when I was in high school. HIGH SCHOOL. Between those and the two I bought on clearance yesterday, I should be covered (ha) for a while. I don’t want to invest in a whole new suite of bras until my body is done recomposing itself — and that’s still a good 30+ pounds away. But I am not at all processing the itty bitty titty sitty situation.
Then this morning, for my weekly weigh-in, I clocked a new lowest-ever (adult) weight: 172.0 lbs. I’m not only on the 160 side of 175; I’m on the 150 side of 175: I’m closer to 160 than to 180, and closer to 150 than to 200.
Losing 100 pounds and getting below 200 were huge milestones, but this? This has me shook in a way neither of those numbers did. Not because I didn’t think it was possible, but because for so long it wasn’t — and now it is.
One hundred and twenty-nine pounds down, and within spitting distance of the 160s. Within sight of The Finish Line beyond that. After all the running, the lifting, the self-coaching, the right choices, the meal prepping, the showing up when no one was watching and I didn’t feel like it… I’m here. And as they say, I didn’t come this far to come this far.
In a way, I’m glad I’m not seeing myself clearly right now, whatever that even means. There’s work to do, and nobody but me is gonna do it. Eventually, my eyes will probably catch up with reality, and maybe even with the eyes of others. Until then — and even after then — it’s go time.
In all the go-go-go of health improvement, it’s easy to skip the part where you stop and recognize the achievements.
So it can feel really good when other people do it for you.
On my post-lunch walk one day, one of my neighbors who sometimes sits out on her front porch with her husband was there. I exited the neighborhood for my medium-length circuit of around 30 minutes, and when I walked back in, there she was still: straight ahead of me. As I started to lift my arm to wave to her, I realized she was already waving wildly at me, pumping both of her arms vigorously up and down while she twisted her hands. I wondered for a second if part of my body had caught fire or there was someone chasing me, so I took off my giant headphones to hear what she was saying, if she was saying anything. Before I could speak, she said “I’m just cheering for you! I see you out here every day!”
The GIGANTIC smile that got from me. “Every day!” I called back. “It’s gonna be a long summer!”
Her broad smile got even bigger. “Go, girl!”
I have never met this neighbor. I don’t know her name and she doesn’t know mine. We’ve lived 4 houses apart for as many years, and we had not spoken a single time before this moment. No regrets about this as our first interaction, or the fact that we wave enthusiastically to each other anytime we cross paths now.
A few days later, I went to Pilates. It has become a pretty standard part of my regimen, anywhere between 1-3 times per week since the end of April. As I was settling in at my reformer, the instructor called out my name and said, “25 classes!” Along with this unexpected shout out — and milestone — I got a spontaneous round of applause from my classmates.
It may sound silly, but these little unexpected celebrations from other people filled my cup. I don’t NEED praise. I don’t NEED acknowledgement. I don’t NEED anyone to clap it up for me. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel great when I get those things.
These experiences had the secondary effect of reminding me that it’s important to recognize my own success. I’ve been an excellent trainee because I’ve been an excellent coach, but I could be a better cheer squad. I’ve clocked, and even marked, milestones as I’ve gone — but in stride. I’ve already moved the goalposts by the time I’m mentally high-fiving myself for making it to the point where they just were. That’s been working well for me: keeping my gaze fixed on the next challenging goal ahead has kept me moving in every way, and it’s been an important part of my game plan not to let myself get comfortable. This has made me stay engaged, focused, and undistracted.
Still, a little pat on the back to me from me is warranted. So here’s to me, sis.
Over the weekend, my mom treated us to mani-pedis at a salon I’ve been going to for years. The owner, who often staffs the front desk, has the same name as me, so we’ve been making prolonged chit-chat every since our first encounter when we figured that out. She hasn’t been around much lately, so when I saw her on Saturday, she complimented my weight loss and seemed struck by it. Then she asked, “are you taking one of those GLP-1s?” When I said no, she was even more floored. “You’re the only person I’ve asked recently who isn’t!”
I ran into another person whom I hadn’t seen since last August — before I even started 75 Hard — at the end of May. He took a moment to recognize me. Once he did and we’d gotten through the small talk portion of the conversation, he also asked me if I’ve been taking “Ozempic or something”. I awkwardly responded, in front of the friend who was there with me and is on a GLP-1, “no, I’m doing it naturally. I run all the time.” (Really, what is the etiquette here?)
It’s no secret that plenty of people are losing weight with the help of glucagon-like peptide-1 drugs. As mass-market appeal grows, so will their use continue to grow. Anyone who is using them for legitimate reasons, and is doing so safely and responsibly, has my blessing — not that they need it! I hope their GLP-1 experience is effective and 0% harmful. I have no problem with them as a general rule. They’re just not for me.
My weight loss has been rapid and drastic. I’ve lost 126 pounds since February of 2025, 106 of which have been since this time last year. Body recomposition has been further changing my shape, defining my muscle tone, and highlighting my facial bone structure pretty prominently for the past 3-4 months. Almost every time my dad sees me, he says something like “my daughter is disappearing!” My brother literally didn’t recognize me when we saw each other at the end of April for the first time since Thanksgiving. Hell, I even had a moment a couple of weeks ago when I was looking inside a storefront window I was passing by, saw someone, and thought, “that thin lady looks like me! …WAIT.“
Given the prevalence of the weight-loss wonder drugs and how prominent my transformation has been, it’s no surprise at all that people would assume I’m one of the 12% of the adult American population who’s on one. There’s a part of me that feels indignant about that. I don’t want just partial credit for my careful nutritional architecture, my self-coached running and strength training, my sweating through challenging YouTube workouts, and my newfound addiction to the pleasurable low-key torture that is Pilates. I deserve FULL credit for all of it. No GLP-1 has contributed to any of this. But hey, if the results are SO pronounced that the only logical conclusion people (who don’t know me very well) can arrive at is that I must be fast-tracking things with a GLP-1, I’ll try to view that as a compliment.
Again, no judgment here towards anyone using a GLP-1 for the right reasons. They’re meant to help people lose necessary weight who have had trouble doing so. Personally, I’ve found a way to better health without any pills, powders, or injections — and I’m proud of that. I’m proud of my body. I’m proud of my stats. And I’m VERY proud of my mind for finding the strength to push myself through the most intense and challenging parts of the process, time and time again. Nobody but me did that.
And for the person who could barely walk 5 minutes without keeling over at this time last year, yeah, I will absolutely strut it.
I saw the scale dip below 200 lbs for the first time in 10 years. I did this mid-week weigh-in specifically because I had my August 11th – February 10th weigh-out to do, which is *the* exception to my Power 11 rule about only doing once weekly weight checks (on Sundays). I handily won that Transformer, going from 268.4 pounds in August to 202.8 pounds on February 11th1 — nearly 2.5 times more than what I needed to lose. Even better, it was the most I’ve ever raked in from a Transformer bet: $343.70! Conversely, it was the smallest group of people I’ve ever played with in a Transformer bet, and possibly any DB at all — so it was a VERY pleasant surprise to clean up like that! My theory is that people signed up for it in August and either lost track of it with the calendar busy-ness between start and end dates, or they fell victim to it: back to school, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and all the functions, parties, events, and promotions that come along with all those occasions.
It’s always a great day to collect. And I felt pretty proud to review these 6 months of pretty fantastic effort and results.
But the good times ended there.
At the beginning of the week, I was contending with intense lower back pain that seemed to hit out of nowhere last Saturday when I woke up. It followed me into Sunday and Monday, and finally fucked off on Tuesday after some desperate interventions I made on Monday night that either paid off quickly or perfectly coincided with the natural ending of the pain. One of those was changing from sleeping on two pillows to sleeping on only one pillow. After losing 100 pounds, my shoulders are narrower, which means I don’t need a stack of pillows to properly support my neck as a side sleeper. I never thought about it until my back started complaining, but I made that adjustment and not only slept better, but woke up on Tuesday with no pain. I felt rejuvenated enough on Tuesday to hit a PBR on the elliptical in my workout that evening: 7.05 miles in one hour on the elliptical. Woohoo!
On Thursday, I had a bit of an emotional hangover from putting myself through some mental health processing work on Wednesday night. It was a positive development overall that came from that, but it did leave me wrung out on Thursday — which consequently felt like a VERY long day. Friday also kind of dragged, but it ended with dinner with a friend I hadn’t seen since the end of June. Catching up with her was lovely and a much needed top-off of my social cup. (And yes, she was floored to see how different I look now!)
Yesterday was the roughest, though. I woke up with my period, which is a bit of a mixed-bag way to wake up. Now that my cycle has seemingly regulated itself, I feel this intense relief, joy, and gratitude when it shows up… and I also feel a bit of apprehension about it. Will it be debilitatingly heavy? Will the pain immobilize me? Then this spins out into feeling that I don’t even have the right to complain about any of the downsides, because I’m lucky to even be having a period now. (Yes, I have managed to emotionally complicate menstruation. Welcome to my mind.)
Anyway, I went for my haircut and lunch with a friend as planned, and everything was fine. Unfortunately, it all took a turn into death by a thousand cuts when I got to the gym for what was supposed to be my half-marathon training session where I’d be running 25 minutes straight for the first time, after multiple missed attempts at this since last week. Spoiler alert: it didn’t happen again. I got on the treadmill to do the damn thing, and my ankle instantly started whining. I figured I’d try to run anyway; it’s about 50/50 whether the pain subsides or not when I give it a shot when this happens. In the final minute of my warm-up walk, someone decided that the machine beside mine was The One — out of all the unoccupied machines beside absolutely no one in the gym that afternoon — they needed to use. Um, no, ma’am. So I hopped off and changed to a different machine that was apparently not good enough for her. I started my run speed, and my ankle all but tea-kettle screamed at me. I tried a couple of minutes, a couple of foot placement changes, trying to see if it would loosen up… but it wouldn’t. So I had to stop.
I was pissed.
But I was at the gym, and the second half of my planned workout for the day was strength training. I was able to complete my circuit without event, but my earbuds did die two minutes into the first exercise. That’s annoying on its own, but I had JUST charged the suckers because this same nonsense happened earlier in the week. Between reps, I was rage-ordering a USB-C wired pair when I realized that not only was my ankle was still making its displeasure known, but my head had joined in. I suddenly felt the pain of a raging headache that was going precisely nowhere. I used to get headaches pretty regularly, but since I’ve started exercising every day, they’ve been a rare misery. When they hit, though… ugh. Right on cue, I moved to my next machine and felt violent cramps join the full-on assault my body was now waging against me.
This gym session was cursed.
That’s when I decided two things: 1) I was absolutely finishing this strength training, unless my limbs fell the entire fuck off; and 2) My evening plans were not happening.
I did finish the arm weights. With sincere apologies, I did cancel my dinner.
And then I went home, did the barest of minimums of prep work, ate what could passably be called dinner, dosed up on Excedrin PM, and promptly passed out on the couch with my ankle icing and propped up.
When I woke up some time later, my headache had not subsided at all. The recommended amount of time between doses had not passed, but I had no energy and no fucks left to give. I popped two more pills, crawled on top of the heating pad in my bed, and was asleep before 8 PM.
And there I stayed for the next 13 hours.
I woke up today feeling a million times better: no trace of a headache, an appeased ankle, and weaker cramps. I’ve been able to be as productive as I needed to be today to make up for the total unproductiveness of yesterday, and my whole list is now accomplished as of almost 6 PM: 2 loads of laundry, 3 meals prepped and snacks pre-portioned for the week, dishes cleaned and put away, and Power 11 Sunday tasks completed. I also went on a brief social call to atone for my last-minute jilt last night, got gas in my car, and transferred the contents of my work bag that broke this week (because of course!) into the replacement for it I ordered that arrived today.
After the weird week I’ve had, it’s no surprise that my total weight loss this week was 0.6 pounds. It’s frustrating, but not terribly; I am a walking skin sack of bloat, sleepiness, and emotional wear. I did the best I could at balancing my training against what my body told me it needed this week, and I can’t expect the scale to reflect that. And now, that week is over. I am letting this Sunday sunset with my yummy dinner, then taking my cramps to bed before they start biting again.
The most important thing I have learned over the past few months is that when my body talks, I need to listen. Feeling a little behind in my training is the price of admission for ensuring I don’t sideline myself for days or weeks because I was trying to prove the wrong point.
One positive thing I can say with full force is that even though this week tried my patience, disrupted my plans, and forced me into what feels like stalled progress, I have NOT fallen into past traps. I didn’t get angry and storm out of the gym, costing myself any amount of movement altogether. I didn’t push myself to keep plans — with myself or with others — that would have involved suffering for me. Most importantly, I never once reached for comfort in the form of sugar-coated sabotage.
I’ve said it before, and I repeat it for a reason: that’s how I know I’ve changed. Unhealthy food doesn’t solve my problems. It iswas my problems.
My body doesn’t want bad food that tastes good. My body wants care.
Some days go smoothly. Some days go roughly.
All I can do is keep going safely.
I trust myself now. Nothing feels better than that.
If you are reading this and noticing that 202.8 pounds is not below 200 lbs — yes. My below weigh-in at 198 was at 5:30 AM, after a pee, nothing new in my system, and buck-ass naked. This is not how I usually weigh in; my typical checks are between lunch and dinner, fully clothed. I have to submit photos for DietBet, so I follow their guidelines in my normal weigh-ins for consistency across my own records. Why the change, then? Because this milestone was important for me, and I wanted to do it this way. Enough said. ↩︎
It’s easy to notice certain behavioral changes during weight loss. At some point in the last 5 months, I started wearing dresses to accentuate curves instead of to disguise my whole body as an amorphous blob (and fooling nobody). I’ve become more comfortable putting my hair up in public and exposing the neck I suddenly have, which sometimes even sports a necklace. I now invite people to walk places with me in the absence of fear I’ll be panting for breath beside them the whole time, mortified. I no longer deflect positive remarks on my progress, and instead fully embraced my brother, along with his beaming exclamation when he saw me on Thanksgiving for the first time since early August. He’d had that look in his eye from the moment he saw me walk in that screamed I noticed!, and he couldn’t wait to tell me with full eye contact before he hugged me: “[Sister]! You’re so little!”
Other changes are harder to catch in action. Paradoxically, the biggest behavioral change I’ve made during my New Days is the one that completely failed to register until just a few hours ago: I’m no longer an emotional eater.
This is beyond monumental. It enters the realm of straining credulity.
Without going into a whole thing, I’ll state simply that the past month or so has been stressful, exciting, anxiety inducing, fun, sad, healing, deeply frustrating, and tiring. In short, it’s been taxing on the more-extreme ends of multiple points of my emotional range. I’ve felt it all. It’s shown up as tension in my arms and shoulders, a shorter fuse, and heightened restlessness, all exacerbated by insufficient sleep rooted in the intensity of how life is right now. How it has not shown up is in destructive behavior.
I cope by using my lunch break for a tour on the walking pad at my desk. I cope by venting my feelings in writing. I cope by commiserating with people in my support network. I cope by singing loudly while taking scalding-hot showers. I cope by running faster, or longer, or both.
I do not cope by consuming unhealthy things. (Anymore.) I don’t even have that impulse. (Anymore.)
When this realization struck me today, I froze in place. It had not occurred to me how much must have changed not only for that fundamental habit to have fallen out of my coping repertoire, but for me to have not even noticed that it had.
As if it’s not the biggest of deals. As if it’s always been this way. As if it was just that easy.
It is. It hasn’t. It was.
But here I am, reconstructed from the inside out. Because 168 days ago, I made a choice that created a chain reaction of subsequent choices that led to a change in me at the cellular level. In that tentative moment on that June day, without grasping the magnitude of what that one choice was setting in motion, I changed my life.
I am not the sad, broken, grayscale person I was for the first half of 2025. I am the centered, recovering, technicolor person on my way to becoming the happy, integrated, vibrant person I want to be.
Strength is a slow burn. You’re strong when you act on any choice you make, but it’s not until you one day realize how far you’ve come that you understand your strength now is only because of your strength then.
Anyone can make a choice: Stop eating the sugar. Train for the half marathon. Throw your hat in the ring for the opportunity. It’s every choice you make after that first one that will either honor that initial strength or not. That’s how you rebuild. That’s how you renew. That’s how you reclaim.
That’s how “never” becomes “maybe some day”, and “some day” becomes NOW.
Last week, when I was weighing out for a Kickstarter, I got an email from DietBet saying that their algorithm had “flagged [my] account due to unusual weight loss patterns.” At first, I was kind of offended. How dare they impugn my integrity! Then I paused and realized… yeah, dropping 45 pounds in 3 months is a reasonable thing to raise a non-sentient eyebrow over. And that’s only the weight loss they can see; from late February to the time of my composing this sentence, I’ve actually lost 80.4 lbs.
It made me step back and ask myself if I’m doing this right. I’ve been operating from a standpoint of prioritizing mental health, and treating the weight loss as secondary (although actively encouraged). Is it healthy to see this kind of change this quickly? My Transformer progress chart, updated as of this morning’s weigh-in for round 3, is pretty staggering. If my weight loss continues at this clip, I could lose more than 30% of my body weight within the DB’s 6-month window and wind up disqualified from winning. I crunched, re-crunched, and even snap-crackle-popped the numbers because I couldn’t believe it — but it’s a very real possibility unless I slow down. (I know you can’t see any pounds in my screenshot, but you don’t need them to understand what’s going on here. For reference, the final 2 diamond points on the chart represent the overall target goal of -10% of my starting weight. I am well below that line already, and we’re only halfway through as of this moment.)
The answer to that question is yes. I have not done anything unhealthy in service of my goals. I have prioritized my exercise time and treated it as sacrosanct. I have honored my nutritional needs so that I am fueling my body, not poisoning it. I have been cognizant of getting proper rest and enough sleep so that I don’t tear myself down. I am taking in enough calories and macros. I am not engaging in obsessive behaviors with the scale or at the gym. And very importantly, I do not have any disordered eating habits pointing to bulimia or anorexia.
The biggest change I’ve made is quitting sugar. Rapid weight loss is what happens when you quit sugar after a lifetime of ingesting every crystal of it in sight. Period, the end.
I expect my weight loss will slow, and it will be maddening when that happens — this quick progression has spoiled me. I don’t mean to suggest it hasn’t come with effort on my part; it certainly has. It’s very difficult to cut out sugar entirely, and it takes me a lot of time to meal prep every week even with just trying to keep my sugar intake low rather than zero. I spend a good amount of time each week on physical activity, too. But as the truism goes, you can’t outrun a bad diet. Never has my body been so grateful as it has these past few months that I’ve let it detox from the white stuff. I’d choose this feeling over a decadent dessert any time, every time, over and over again.
So I feel ok that I now have to submit to an extra level of scrutiny during my DietBet weight checks until they remove the flag on my account. It turns out that it’s not any more annoying to record a video of myself getting on the scale than it is to take 2 still photos. In fact, I may actually prefer the video method. It’s hard to complain when my body is this happy.
Over the weekend, I had two other affirming experiences that underscore the positive ways my body is reflecting the changes I’m making. First, I had a haircut on Saturday — my first since the very first week of this whole NEW DAY chapter of my life. My stylist, not having seen me since 58 pounds ago, not only remarked on how great she thought I looked and nearly jumped out of her skin when I answered her question about how much I’d lost, but she also said my hair looks healthier than ever. It’s gotten a little thicker and is growing more quickly. That’s not something I expected to be possible after a certain age, but she couldn’t get over the difference.
The other experience was going for reflexology massages with a friend. We were unexpectedly made to strip down to the waist when it was time for the deep tissue massage, which we were having done in the same room. In the past, I would have lobbied to keep my clothes on, thankyouverymuch. Not this time. Bye bye, shirt and bra. It’s not exactly a smoke show under there, but it’s not a paralyzing source of shame in front of a bunch of other women anymore. And hey, I have had so much relief from that massage in the days since: greater range of motion in my neck, no stiffness in my ankles in the mornings, less soreness in my shoulders. Worth it.
I also found 2 pairs of pants on clearance over the weekend which were a size down, but I bought them anyway because I keep pantsing myself when I walk. My best estimate was I’d be about 2-3 weeks out from wearing either of them, and I’d fill the gap with skirts and dresses (brrr!) until then.
About an hour ago, I tried one of the pairs on.
They fit.
I cried.
Happy body, happy tears. And none too soon.
Last night was the first night of my half marathon training. It went well, but this is gonna suuuuuuuck.
I came right home and officially registered for the event.
It’s day 48 of 75 Hard, and I’m writing this from the moving walking pad in my home office as I finish this second-to-last task of the day. Less than one month from now, this challenge will be over and I’ll be assessing my performance during it.
Right now, I’m tiiiiiiiiiired. It took 2 full weeks for my apex predator of a cold to finally fuck off, and although I feel almost 100% better, I still have some residual phlegm and nasalness to my voice. Blazing through 14 straight days of that unwelcome guest to my immune system possibly protracted my recovery time, since 75 Hard does not allow for any rest days. I doubtlessly got through that mostly on adrenaline, and now that my inner cheerleader is slightly lowering her megaphone, I’m feeling some sort of crash. It doesn’t help that yesterday and today, scheduling hiccups outside of my control threw off my usual routine of a midday outdoor workout followed by an indoor post-work exercise session. Those disruption-induced changes resulted in every kind of restlessness: antsy feelings during the day as I itched to get my movement in, no time for a pause between things thanks to the congestion in my daily activities, and evening workouts late enough to spike my energy before bedtime and cost me sleep at night. A big ol’ UGH to all of that.
I’m not sure how the scale will reflect the blah of the latter portion of this week, but I did the best I could under the circumstances. What I do have indications of is how the world is reflecting my 75 Hard-fueled changes thus far:
My clothes are looser. I wore an outfit on Tuesday that I last wore 6 weeks prior, on August 11th. At the time, the pants were new and slightly snug, and the top was old but recently re-shrunken into — though it did hug me too tightly when I sat down in it. This week, I was swimming in both articles of clothing to the point where I looked and felt ridiculous. Neither piece is long for this world.
My face and shoulders are slimmer. In a recorded video of myself seated and speaking directly into the camera for 45 minutes from two weeks ago, I’m rocking puffy cheeks, a double chin, and outward-sloping shoulders. My most-recent 75 Hard progress photos — and, dare I say, mirrors — show a consistent face width, a single chin (at many angles), and shoulders whose edges almost align perpendicularly with the floor.
People in my in-person social circle are remarking on my physical changes out loud. Over the weekend, my dad hit me with a “there seems to be less of you!” This morning, I met a friend for a half-day working session at a coffee shop and she commented something along the lines of being able to tell that 75 Hard is working for me.
So yes, I’m low on energy right now. I may even be running low on enthusiasm. But I am NOT low determination, commitment, or sticktoitiveness. And while my fire may need new kindling, it helps that I don’t have the sole responsibility of producing it this time. The above list of real-world reflections is coming through with a lot of that heavy lifting.
Friday was a real struggle. Not even running as fast as I can/normally do, I started feeling almost queasy with 10 minutes left to go. I powered through it — it took every ounce of mental strength and focus that I had, and I kept going. I did it so I could say I did it, so: I DID IT. I’m proud of myself for getting through that, but it felt rough throughout and for a while after. It left me feeling so icky that I skipped a Sunday workout to try to respond to the message my body seemed to be sending me.
Yesterday, I decided I’d do a 60-minute treadmill walk rather than an elliptical run. At the 50-minute mark, I realized I had a massive blister forming on the ball of my right foot that already hurt and was a big enough bubble that it was making my steps weird, and that was causing discomfort in my hip. I had to stop myself 10 minutes shy of the time I’d wanted to hit. (Luckily, my at-home blister remedies have been effective and the thing is already flat and painless.)
In the interim, I discovered that the cut on my knee has gotten infected. Yay! (I’m treating it now, and I think it’s responding.)
But you know what? It’s not all bad news.
At dinner with a friend on Saturday night, he asked: “Are you losing weight?” I said yes, and I was surprised he could tell. He said it was noticeable in my face.
That’s step 1! Next up: neck and shoulders.
I signed up for a DietBet earlier this month. It was already a week underway when I decided to join, which means I had 25% less time to lose the same 4% of body weight that I would have had if I’d joined at the start date of the game. The weigh-out was today.
At some point last winter, I noticed a pain in my left bicep during certain normal movements. Raising my arms in certain ways hurt, lifting certain things in certain ways hurt, and even certain light Zumba arm moves hurt. It eventually became painful to sleep on my left side, which is my usual position. The only thing I could conclude was that I had somehow torn a muscle. Although I didn’t have any kind of scan done, my (new and less wonderful) doctor confirmed it when I saw her for the first time in May for a physical.
I’ve been doing independent weight training on my arms since I started this weight-loss party back in March 2015. I have always been careful with controlling the motion of anything I lifted, taking it slow, and making sure the weight isn’t too much. I somehow still managed to hurt myself pretty severely. The best I can figure is that when I started doing arms again after enough of a hiatus to decrease my strength, I worked out as if I had never stopped and over-exerted my muscles when I should have ratcheted down the amount of weight I was lifting. Muscles are built by a process of tearing and rebuilding, but when a tear comes from an injury, it’s not magically healed by a protein bar. It needs to rest until it’s ready to work again. You can’t rush it.
The doctor told me in May to stop with arms weights until my bicep was healed. Foolishly, I gave it a week and then resumed my normal circuits in spite of the persistent pain. The only reason I ended up stopping is because I abandoned health altogether when things got rough in the fall.
A year later, I’m finally healed. I hit my arms circuit last night for the first time in several months. I was a little tentative and ginger at the beginning of my workout, especially when it came to the exercises that really used to hurt when my muscle was damaged. But you know what? I feel good today. I have the satisfying soreness from a good burn, but no pain. Soreness is fine, but there should never be pain. Got it. No more being stupid. But also… I forgive you, past self.
On Tuesday, I was chatting with a friend as we were leaving work together. She asked, “Are you dieting?” I said, “I’m eating right.” She said, “Your face looks good.”
Life Can't Weight 