Progress Pics

This weight loss journey has been going on for some time, but I've never really taken progress pictures. In April of 2006 when I had gained back some weight that I lost, I started exercising again and eating well so I took some front, side and back pictures with the thought that I would start taking monthly progress pictures. But that didn't happen. So tonight I pulled together some pictures to give an idea of where I've been.

December 2001

Earlier in 2001 I hit 235, my highest weight ever. I went to the doctor for migraines and for the very first time a doctor looked at me, concerned, and asked if I had thought about exercising. It was awful. I started working out twice a day, swimming laps in the morning and lifting weights on my lunch hour. I managed to lose a little weight and I think I got down to around 220 or 225, which is where I was in this picture.

August 2002

Taken about a week before I started law school. I had lost some of my workout momentum, my boyfriend went on a mission at the beginning of 2002, and I was neck-deep in depression (which I wouldn't admit for another year and a half). So I was still around 220 to 225.

Christmas 2003
This holiday was a doozy. I wasn't really in the mood to weigh myself, so for all I know I was back up to 230. The boyfriend and I had broken up and I was still so very sad and hopeless about it all. A few months later, I hit bottom, admitted that I was not really in control, and I started taking anti-depressants. Completely changed my world.

May 2004
At my roommate's graduation. I was probably about 210 or 215 here, having started dropping weight as soon as I started on the meds and felt like doing something besides sitting on my butt all day watching TV. I mostly see the loss in my face. I feel like that girl with the round face wasn't really me.

November 2004
Still working out and trying to eat well. I was definitely about 205. The weight wasn't falling off like I wished it would, but I felt strong and healthy and happy.

July 2005
Right after taking the Bar Exam, following a summer of super-healthy eating and swimming laps almost every day. This was my lowest weight at that time, about 185. I felt awesome! I fit into a dress I hadn't worn in 5 years. I had this moment of realization one day when I was standing in front of my mirror getting ready for something. I glanced over at a picture on my dresser of a friend and me at her bridal shower in the Spring of 2001 and I realized I didn't recognize myself. My face was very round, and my eyes... My eyes looked sad and searching and not like me. I looked at myself in the mirror again. I looked at my body that I had made fit and strong and I started crying. I felt sad for that girl who I was, and so very happy with who I had become.

Then follows an up and down period. See, I moved to DC, didn't have health insurance, went off the meds, couldn't find work, was trying to figure out if a brand new relationship was going anywhere. I felt the need to eat Chicken McNuggets from the McDonald's down the street often. In the Spring and Summer of 2006, I joined a nice gym and worked out a lot. I went from 199 down to around 190. By January of 2007, I had moved back to Boston, but I wasn't taking care of myself and I was back up to 207.

A friend and I decided to do something about our lack of activity and our weight gain. It's always good to have a buddy. I started swimming laps again, keeping track of what I was eating, and also, and this is probably pretty key, I got back on anti-depressants. By August I had lost 27 pounds.

October 2007

The key in all of this, if you haven't noticed, is that I have to eat right and work out regularly. Otherwise the weight just comes back.

December 2007
I gained back some weight. I think I was about 190 at this point. Following a holiday season of eating a lot of really yummy and really bad for me food, I was back up to 194.

January 2008
Two weeks before we left for India, I started eating healthy again and went to the gym almost every day. Then I spent two weeks in India eating extremely healthy and walking a lot. A lot. A week after we got back, I weighed in at 185. I'll take it.

And that's where I am now. I'm working out again, I'm trying to eat well (which I find to be easier when I'm on my own for an evening and don't have my husband around being a bad influence. Yes, that's what I'm all about. Passing the buck.) I'm also gearing myself up for a sugar detox - just as soon as I finish the last of my Valentine's dark chocolate.

Fat and Image and Money

I just read a post on Big Fat Deal that got me thinking. In the article they quote the writer says:

You know that whole thing about how being superskinny is an ideal originated by the fashion industry and perpetuated by female competitiveness and like, totally NOT AT ALL what men are interested in etc. etc.? Well that’s bullshit, says a story in the March Elle by Amanda Fortini, a 5′6 woman who dropped to 100 pounds a few years back.

Then she goes on to remark on how many men hit on her. As the commenters to the post point out, she was in a niche group of people - wealthy New Yorkers - during her experience. Generally, though, I think it's safe to say that many, many men will find the skinnier woman in the room attractive. Many, many white men at least (and this includes my husband).*

But I wonder how much of this is a chicken and the egg type of thing. Sure, most guys seem to like the thin girls, but is that because of a natural inclination, or because for the past 40+ years we've had images of super skinny women slammed in our collective face as the ideal, and look at how beautiful she is and don't we want to be just like her with our hips and collarbones poking out like they could cut us? If you look at movies or art from much of the time before that, the ideal beautiful woman was shapely and curvy. Sometimes flat out fat. I often think of a movie I saw several years ago that was filmed in the late 1950's The main character's boss was having an affair with his secretary, the office bombshell. She was pretty outrageous looking even for the 50's and had very large hips, very large breasts, a huge a** and a tiny waist (well, compared to her hips at least). The boss was sleeping with her and all of the men salivated as she walked by. Today that actress would just be cast as the funny fat friend.

So I do think that media plays a role in determining what is "attractive" and I don't think an anecdotal story about how a woman who lot of weight right now got hit on a lot proves anything about men's natural inclinations because of course she got hit on a lot, she lost a lot of weight in 2008, following years of everyone being told that skinny, dangerously super skinny, is where it's at. Would everyone have had feathered hair if not for Farrah Fawcett? Probably not.

However, there's a lot more at play here than the media, in my opinion, although I do think the media perpetuates the ideal. Maybe it has more to do with thinness being a sign of social status nowadays. Fat people are seen by some as dirty, slovenly and often poor. It's a fact: veggies cost more than processed food. Being super skinny proves that you can eat super healthy and/or work out with a trainer several hours a day. Who has time to do that but independently wealthy people? Not so in, say, the 17th century, when plump, nay, fat was beautiful and ideal because it meant you had a lot of money to spend on food and didn't waste it all away by working in the fields or cleaning houses or the like. The term "Rubenesque" comes from paintings like this one, after all


"The Three Graces" painted by Peter Paul Rubens in the 1630's.

So maybe the obsession with thin says more about materialism than we might think. Another post I read earlier (Can't remember where, sorry) discusses how during a conversation about the ideal trophy wife or husband, the men agreed that the trophy wife would be a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition cover model, while the women agreed the trophy husband would be someone like the creator of Google. The point of that post was that the trophy woman was all about looks while the trophy man was all about money. I would argue they're both about money, just in different ways.

Anyway, just thinking...

*I hope this doesn't come across as racist in any way, but in my 20 or so years of being bootylicious, I always got many more appreciative looks from black and Hispanic men. I always thought I wouldn't wind up with a white man because when I was younger they never really appreciated my curves (kind of like I never thought I would actually manage to marry a Mormon with my liberal views. Go figure).

Mornings = Bleh

Looks like the evening workout is the winner because I don't know if you know this, but morning is really early.

Let's Get Physical

I'm trying to decide if I should be offended that my husband asked me the other night, "So...are you going to go back to the gym...?" He assured me it wasn't because I'm looking rounder, but because he's actually been going 3 times a week since we got back from India and he said if he has to suffer, then so should I. Never mind those 8 months last year when I went to the gym and he sat on his bum while asking me to pass the potato chips.

But this is the same guy who hadn't been to a gym in 15 years and I am so proud. And as a bonus, his arms are getting stronger. Maybe I'm weird, but seriously I think one of the most sexy things in the world is guy arms. Not overly muscular, just firm so that you can feel the strength. Yummy. This morning I noticed Jason's arms are getting harder and I made him flex for me a few times.

So anyway, yeah, tomorrow I'm getting back to the gym. I always seem to lose whatever momentum I've built up when I start a new job. But this marks the third week of my new job (which is great, btw) and I need to figure out my gym routine. I'm trying to decide whether to go in the mornings or the evenings. Mornings means getting up an hour earlier than I currently am, which I hate so, SO much. However, at least then I'm done and I know nothing will keep me from getting to the gym later.

I do like working out better in the evenings, but it's not like I get out of work exceptionally early and then I'm always starving. Maybe I'll stock up on some pre-workout Luna bars. Tomorrow is the big day so I have to figure it out by the time I set my alarm tonight.

The good thing is, my workout plan of walking all over southern India and Paris and my eating plan of "everything in sight because I'm starving from all the walking" is still keeping my weight down. I know the last couple of weeks of sitting in an office again are going to catch up with me, though. I did manage to lose 9 pounds in the last month and a half. I think a big part of that is the non-processed, all-natural, mostly vegetarian fare that I ate while we were in India. It was all amazingly good. If I were going to be vegetarian, I think I would need to move to India. Or adopt an Indian mom to cook for me. Because, seriously, they know how to do vegetarian.

Progress Is A Beautiful Thing

After a week of working out, two weeks of walking a lot in India and Paris, and a week of doing nothing much except eating right, I'm down 7 pounds since the end of December. Yay! I'm only 6 pounds away from my low weight of 180.6 that I hit last June. However, my waist is 2 inches larger so I think I need to be doing some ab work.

Next week it's back to the gym.

Walking

One of the great things about my new job is that it's only a couple of miles from my house. When I worked in downtown Boston and lived in Cambridge, I used to walk the 3 miles home some nights. It was a great way to get outside after a long day of being cooped up in the office in front of the computer. Hopefully I'll be able to walk home most days from this job, I just need to find a safe way home. There are patches of seediness in between work and home, although I really think some of the wide-eyed warnings are from people who aren't familiar with cities. I've never felt unsafe in my neighborhood, but then I don't seek out the park where all the drugs deals go down because I'm not stupid.

4 days in a row now I've made it to the gym! This morning when I woke up, the cat was snuggled up on one side of me and Jason was snuggled up on the other side and it was just really hard to pull myself away from that. However, Jason and I are traveling to India next week and I have promised myself that I will work out every day (except Sunday) until we leave. So far, so good.

I Win!

Another 35 minutes on the elliptical today. The Y I go to has no TV's with closed captioned text like every other gym I've ever gone to and I realized yesterday that without TV's to stare at, my music gets boring. Apparently I need two multimedia distractions to get through a workout. Hello, Generation ADD!

So I downloaded a ton of Dr. Fitness and the Fat Guy podcasts last night, which I read about on Pasta Queen's blog. So far I like them ok and they're making the workout go pretty fast. Just like with my massive commute, for me listening to people talk makes time go more quickly than listening to music.

I would also like to note with much acclaim and fanfare that my husband Jason went to the gym last night! He hasn't been to a gym since 1994*. However, with me getting back into the groove and one of his close friends being an insane runner he's finally getting peer-pressured into it. I think he's also intrigued by the fact that his friend can eat ANYthing and he never gains weight because he works out so much.

Not only that, but I've signed Jason up for a SparkPeople account and I'm keeping track of everything for him. He said, and I quote, "Just tell me what to do." Well, for starters, eat 1700-2100 calories a day instead of the 6000 he usually eats.

If any of you knew Jason you would all know what a coup this is on my part. I'm thrilled.


*And that time I think he probably just showed up for an orientation and a free T-shirt.

Possibly TMI

I went to the gym this morning. Aren’t you proud of me? I’m proud of me. It only took 35 minutes on the elliptical and my body is flowing with endorphins. I always forget how much I actually like exercising – or rather, how much I like the results of exercising.

This weekend I had a thought that I wanted to get people’s opinions on: could I be gaining weight from my birth control pill?

Let me lay this out for you. I readily acknowledge that I haven’t been eating great since I stopped my regular program 7 months ago. However, the last time I put some weight back on it took me about 15 months to gain 18 pounds, and this is with regular excursions to McDonald’s to feed my disgusting McNugget addiction (yes, I realize it’s gross, but there it is).

From June through October of 2007, I gained between 3-5 pounds. I started on the pill in September. I have gained 10 pounds in the past 2 ½ months. And 5 of those have been in the past few weeks.

Seriously?

So either I’m completely deluding myself with how much I’m eating (it’s happened before, but I was neck deep in depression at the time), or something has triggered the weight gaining part of my body. Something that wasn’t there before.

Based on the message boards I read last night, it seems like a complete crapshoot as to whether you gain weight on the pill or not. There are many people complaining about having gained weight despite not changing any of their habits and not being able to take it off, even when they increase their exercise. There are a few people who say they haven’t had any problems, but not many. (However, I realize if someone is looking for information on gaining weight from the pill and happen upon those message boards they’re more likely to have experienced weight gain and to post about it. Why would you go searching for such a thread if you’re not gaining weight? The real stats could be 50/50 or maybe 30/70, with 70% not gaining weight, for all I know.)

Some of the people on the boards said things like, “Of course you gain weight on the pill. Your body thinks it’s pregnant.” I don’t know if that’s strictly true, but it does mess with your hormones and prevent you from ovulating.

I have just switched to a new pill because of other issues I was having with the old one, and I’m hoping that maybe if it was the pill, this one will be better. I figure if I work out and eat well and don’t see a change (or worse, gain more!) after 2 months, then I’ll have a little chat with my doctor about it.

Ahem

So, hi. I'm back. After 7 months off the wagon, I'm back. You know it's bad when your brand spanking new husband admits that the regaining of the weights is not as invisible as you had hoped.*

New Year's Resolution: work out, eat well. Simple, right? Never mind the fudge on the table in the office kitchen. Never mind the decadent chocolate bars that my in-laws shoved in my stocking. I need boundaries or I will weigh 200 again in no time.

Here are my plans:

1) Purge my house of bad-for-me food. More difficult now since I am married. However, as I said to him last night, "We have GOT to get this crap out of our home!" I will allow a candy bin, however I will only eat from the candy bin once a week at most (maybe a Sunday treat) and then it will just be a square of dark chocolate or a Peppermint Patty. I have proven in the past that I'm capable of setting those limits when I'm focused.

2) Join the gym. I've lived across the street - ACROSS THE STREET - from the Y for 2 1/2 months now and apparently my legs are broken or something and can't seem to make that big walk of fifty feet to officially sign up.

3) (and this is key) GO to the gym. Should be simpler now that I'll most likely be working 3 days a week in Providence.** I plan 3 days of cardio, alternating with 2 days of weights, with a Saturday thrown in if I make it over there. I got a Nano for Christmas so I am all ready to take that elliptical machine down to the pounding of heavy bass. I will also swim in a few months, but in the middle of winter my swimming urge just isn't there. Hopefully by starting off thinking that I will go every day, it won't be so easy for me to say, "Yes, but even if I don't go this morning, I can still get in 3 workouts this week." Because that's really easy to say when my alarm goes off.

4) Plan my meals. This is also key. I get in trouble when dinner becomes, "I don't know, what do YOU want?" and lunch is whatever I can grab from some fast food place near work.

5) Eat at LEAST one fresh fruit and one fresh vegetable a day.

6) Water water water. My water intake has been way down lately in favor of Diet Coke with Lime or Diet Dr. Pepper (see #7).

7) Cut down my soda intake. Last time I did this, I was drinking one Diet Coke with Lime per week as a Saturday or Sunday treat. Because I don't want to wind up laying on the floor from an incapacitating migraine, I'm gradually weaning myself from the caffeine.*** Today instead of bringing 2 cans of DCL to work, I only brought one. I'm drinking it right now with my lunch. I won't have any more today. Monday I'll start the no soda thing and will only allow one soda per week.

All the details, like what to eat and how much, I already know. I just haven't been putting my knowledge to any use, but have been letting it sit on a shelf all shiny and pretty while I eat lots of cheese and bread and chocolate.


* Before you smack him or tell him he's a horrible, horrible person, this followed a conversation where he said his belly was getting too big and in the way and I said, "Yep." Then I pointedly asked him if he had noticed my regained weight. He hemmed and hawed, but yes, he has.

** Yes! More details on that once I know all the details myself.

***Besides, I'm going to India in a couple of weeks and I don't really know what my access to caffeine will be and I would rather go through withdrawal here with my down comforter and teddy bear.

Gah!

So I was all set to wait until after the holidays and start with a New Year's resolution to get back on the ball, but the scale this morning scared me.

189.4

After I swore to myself I would never hit 190 again. Up until now, I've been around 183-185, but I think getting married and eating out a lot and indulging every little food whim I have has pushed the scale up a lot more quickly than before.

So let's be brutally honest. It's been 6 months since I've been religious with my food journaling on Sparkpeople. It's also been 6 months since I've worked out regularly. I have had a few weeks here and there where I made it to the pool 3 or 4 times, but I haven't been consistent at all.

I live right across the street from the Y and can work out every morning if I just drag my butt out of bed. No more excuses.

Sidelined

Well, I WAS going to start back to the gym this morning, but it wasn't to be. Last night when we were moving a bookshelf, I kicked it with my left big toe and the nail pulled off.

Again.

This is the 4th time this has happened. I'm starting to think this toenail just does not want to be part of my body. So today my poor toe is wrapped in a couple of bandaids and throbbing a bit. I couldn't swim because the bandaids would come off and I've tried to swim with the toenail flapping around, and let me just tell you, it hurts like a mother.

I could elliptical you say. Except for the fact that shoes and pressure on the toe are pretty painful right now. In fact, I tried to put on heels this morning to go to work and after gasping out in pain a few times, Jason told me to just wear comfy shoes. He said, "Look, if you had broken your foot, you would just wear sneakers or boots or whatever, right?" True.

So I'm wearing my Payless bike shoes, with the sassy zig zag strap. The toe still hurts a little, but it's not too bad. I've actually gotten 4 compliments on the shoes today, with no one commenting that they're not very business-y.

On the upside, we still have a LOT of cleaning and unpacking to do and I will be lugging around big boxes of books tonight as I unload them onto my bookshelves. It may be a lame work out, but I'm going to let it count for now.

Oh hi.

So, I got married and stuff. It was super fun.

Today I was talking with a girl at work, both of us bemoaning our lack of weight loss momentum, and it hit me that all of those times I said that I would get back to it after the wedding, well, that's now. The two of us have agreed to be each other's motivators and I even directed her toward SparkPeople.

I was really worried yesterday after I commuted for 3 1/2 hours (and then came home and cried like a hysterical baby because, oh my gosh, all the traffic, and the stopping and the going, and I'm totally going to kill someone) that I would never be able to find the time to work out. However, I arranged with my 3-day a week job today to come in at 10 instead of 9, which means I miss rush hour. Providence, RI to Newton, MA this morning: 50 minutes. That is so, SO much better than the hour and 45 minutes it took yesterday. Let's hear it for flexible bosses!

So that means I can skip across the street to the Y on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, and then throw in a workout on Saturday for good measure. The hard part, I feel, is going to be the food this time around. For one, I have totally given in to my Diet Coke with Lime/Diet Dr. Pepper addiction and have been consuming a lot of caffeine over the past few months. That's going to be a rough habit to break. I want to go back to only letting myself have a soda once a week.

For two, I have been caving into all of the temptations around me. Every Friday one of my jobs has bagels and pastries and such and I was so, SO good at resisting them. Not to mention the cakes and candies and all the other stuff people bring in. I didn't even give them a second thought, just walked on by. Yeah, I don't know what happened, but that amazing resolve I used to have has completely disappeared. I had an asiago cheese bagel this morning with sundried tomato cream cheese (reduced fat). While it was sinfully yummy, I realize that sort of behavior has to stop.

Monday it starts again. I dusted off my SparkPeople profile and redid my stats. Monday morning I'm hitting the gym. Monday I will be eating healthy and drinking massive amounts of water (while most likely staving off a caffeine headache). I have only gained about 4 pounds back, but it was freaking hard to lose those 4 pounds and I refuse to be that girl again who says, yeah, I lost 22 pounds last year. But I gained it all back.

Wedding Coming Up

5 weeks until the wedding and I haven't gotten my wedding dress altered yet because I have been in such denial about the fact that I wasn't going to lose 10 more pounds. Darn it. Stupid crazy busy summer.

Yesterday I bought my shoes. Today I bought my, ahem, underthings. I wanted something that gave a nice line under the dress so I invested in some Spanx, as seen and lauded on Oprah. Those things rock. And they actually stay up right under my bust like I always wish control top pantyhose would do. So now there is no excuse to not get my dress fitting over and done with, besides hating to say, "Yes, it needs to be let out." *Sob*

Also, since I really have NO idea what size I am with the weight going down then up then back down again, I had a real bra fitting. 36D. Whaaaa? Who knew I was a D? Seriously, though, I tried on the 36D and it fit amazingly and held the girls up high and proud. I thought I was a D when I was my heaviest, but now I think that I must have been a DD because I have definitely shrunk with the weight loss. As I have also learned from Oprah, 99.9%*of women wear the wrong size bra. Guess I was one of them.

I swam 4 times this week and this morning I did a routine (versus just swimming straight laps) that got the endorphins pumping and made me feel strong. Also this week I discovered what I need to eat AFTER a workout: Protein. Usually when I swim, I feel a little brain-foggy for about half of the day. I figured it must be a food thing but many experiments haven't shown me what exactly. This week, as the idea of cold cuts had me salivating after my workout, I tried just straight protein. About 120 calories of chicken and I am on top of the world. So I have finally worked the kinks out of the morning workout food: Pre-workout - 1 serving of juice or fruit and 2 slices of light wheat bread with a 1/2 T of butter and/or honey; Post-workout - protein.

Tomorrow we are going to The Big E, aka the New England State Fair. I plan to try a deep fried Snickers (which I won't eat all on my own. I just want to try it) and a Big E Cream Puff and that's all I want. I think 4 swims this week allow for a little state fair food. Next week I plan to swim 4 or 5 times. Rock on.


*Not really, but some high number.

Nooooooooooo!

You know what's motivating? Stepping on a scale after 2 weeks of not working out and, oh, a month or so of not really caring all that much about what I put in my mouth. Gah!

The weather has been so lovely lately that I planned all of these errands on Saturday that entail walking all over downtown Boston. Only I learned this morning that Saturday will be muggy and mid-90's. So I figure I should sweat off at LEAST a couple of pounds. If I don't die from heat prostration.

Meh

I don't know what my problem is. I have a few good months and then it all goes to hell in a handbasket.* After some good times here at the weight loss blog, I find myself puttering around, not eating THAT badly, but not eating that well either, and surely not exercising regularly. I keep saying, "The momentum's back! Rrraar!" and I have a good couple of days, but then the momentum fades.

I should have lost 10 more pounds by now and at least several more inches. Instead, I'm going to have to have my wedding dress let out instead of taken in when I finally make it to the tailor. It's all this wedding planning and working 2 part-time jobs (about 50 hours a week) with no job security and traveling to and from Providence a LOT to hang out with Jason.

Worst of all, I'm losing my edge of moral superiority over my less active and "oh, these shorts are getting tight" fiance. And we can't have that.

I don't really know how to get my spark back, and I am so in awe of women like Pasta Queen who have lost insane amounts of weight and are still plugging along, sticking to their plan. I keep making excuses about how this week has been SO CRAZY, but I have a feeling that that's how they're going to be from now on - at least until the wedding. Probably afterwards too. And I am NOT gaining back 22 pounds just in time to walk down the aisle!

Tomorrow is shot. I'll be in Providence tonight and I don't have my suit or anything with me. But Thursday. Thursday I am in the pool.


* In one of my apartments in Chicago we had a navy blue inflatable chair that got dubbed "the handbasket" because one of us was sitting in it while being snarky, followed up by, "I'm going to Hell" and then another one of us chimed in, "In a handbasket" and then she said "No, I'm in the blow up chair," but the chair was forever after dubbed the handbasket. OK, you probably had to be there, but we got a lot of mileage out of the handbasket and who happened to be sitting in the handbasket and what you could be doing in the handbasket to warrant your destination.

I Guess I'm Not the Fat Girl Anymore

I had an encounter yesterday that seriously called into question my self perception, as well as reminded me of the type of comments I hope I never hear myself making.

I was offsite at a client’s office and had to be let in by the secretary. The elevator door opened to let us on and out walked 3 heavyset women with large containers of food they had just gotten from the cafeteria one floor below.

After we got in and the doors shut behind us, the secretary turned to me and said, “I know this is awful of me to say, but every morning when I see those big women with their big food containers all I can think is, ‘You can’t walk up one flight of stairs?’”

And, ok, the women were large and they did have a lot of food, but as someone who has bounced around the 200 mark for awhile I know that simply eating less and walking up a flight of stairs occasionally probably aren’t the only issues there.

I just kind of murmured, “Uh-huh” without elaborating. This was the client after all. It’s not like I could really whip out my In Defense of the Overweight Treatise.

It was weird to suddenly feel like I was part of the in crowd. The thin crowd. The ones who talk about the fat people. The fat people were the “other”, there to be judged.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wondered if people around me were thinking that I really didn’t need to be ordering that brownie or that scoop of full fat, full sugar ice cream. Maybe they were.

I still feel like the fat girl. I feel like I look pretty good now, but I know I still have 20 pounds to lose. More if I wanted to look like someone on TV, which I don’t.

Just an odd moment all around. Uncomfortable because of the comment being made to me, assuming I would agree. Strange to realize that I suppose I don’t come across as the fat girl anymore. At least not to this secretary.

Plateau?

I think I may have hit the dreaded plateau. June was kind of a loss because of the craziness of the month and my sporadic exercising. However, other than a McDonald's indiscretion the other day*, I have been pretty precise with my eating for the last few weeks. I've been doing the calorie cycling, eating my high calories on the heaviest exercise days. I've been swimming and when I can't swim I do weights and pilates at home, which, with the weather the way it's been, is probably worth more than I give myself credit for based on the amount of sweat I'm generating in my non-air conditioned apartment on the 3rd floor.

Yet I weigh myself every morning and the scale keeps bobbing between a 2-3 pound spread. I whip out the tape measure and don't really see any difference. And, people, I need to fit into my wedding dress!

With my schedule, I can't really squeeze in more workout time right now. So I guess my only option is to try to mix it up. This morning I swam my 80 laps, but I threw in 10 laps of backstroke and I can really feel it. Different muscles, different breathing. I think I need to fight my way out of my workout rut, which it's easy to fall into when it's 6:45 AM and I just don't want to have to think about an interesting and challenging routine. Apparently, though, just swimming my usual isn't cutting it anymore.

On the mornings when I don't swim, I think I may try to go for a fast walk. Since I drive to work now I never get to walk through my neighborhood anymore on the way to the train station so it will be nice to check out everyone's gardens and see what's new. Then I can do some weights in the evenings.

I just need to do something. This whole plateau thing is very annoying!


* Which was totally not worth it. The puny, deep fried, heavily battered Chicken Selects were not all they had promised to be. Yesterday I had a Southwest Salad and realized I should have just ordered that the other night for dinner. Yum! And no guilt!

Boyfriend*

80 laps yesterday.

However, today I had to get something signed by a client before work. A client who works near where I live, not near where I work (about a half hour from where I live). Since the gym is near my work, I had to forego the pool this morning. I did get up early and do pilates, weights and abs, so at least I did something.

Last weekend, Jason had to go to work on Saturday afternoon and left me to putter around his place. I was watching TV, but then got antsy just sitting on the couch so I decided to do an ab workout while I was waiting. Then I went ahead and did some leg exercises too while I was at it.

He got home and said, "Have you been watching TV this whole time?" I said, "Yes, but I've been productive too. I did abs and leg exercises." He looked crushed and said, "Why didn't you wait and do the exercises with me?"

Well, A) you never really seemed that interested in exercising before, and B) (as a corollary of A) I'm not a mind reader.

However, I was excited to learn that he actually wants me to show him the exercises I do and to do them with me. Also, he's started walking the mile to work every day AND playing tennis occasionally with some co-workers. I think I'm being a positive influence. Now if I could just get him to eat better...


* I don't like the word "fiance." It sounds too snooty or something.

Dress

Now I can tell you one of the big things that was so distracting during the month of June.

I have additional motivation to keep losing weight, you know, besides my health and all that. My dress. It's just a tad too small, but I knew when I bought it that I was losing weight so it would all work out. Right? OK, there is enough fabric in the seams that a seamstress could let out an inch or two, but I don't really want to go that route. I would rather have her taking the dress in.

So this month I focus on fitting into the dress. I don't have to get the tailoring done quite yet so my goal is to fit into the dress on my own by then.

Monday: 80 laps
Wednesday: 80 laps, ab exercises, weights

And I plan on swimming tomorrow and Friday too.

On A Roll

I asked my roommate the other night why suddenly after 4 months of good eating and working out I was having such a hard time being consistent? She said it's because this whole weight loss thing isn't the only thing I have to think about anymore. Very true.

When I was at my mindless job, it was easy to be very precise with what I was doing to take care of my body. Since I could work from home, I would often leave early to make the pool's lap swimming schedule and then work a couple of more hours that night, usually with The Office or something in the background. Now I use my brain and I actually have to be at work ALL DAY LONG. The nerve! Plus, I've had a couple of outside projects come up that are further occupying my mind and my time.

So while I should have lost 4-5 more pounds and who knows how many more inches last month, instead I lost nothing. Well, no, that's a lie. My weight stayed the same, but I lost half an inch on my waist and half an inch on my hips. Which, you know, is good and all, but not that much progress for a whole month.

I think I need to make an effort to blog more here just so that I'm more mindful of what I am doing. I feel my momentum kicking up again as I'm settling into a routine. Last week, we wound up walking about 4 miles on the 4th, then I did pilates and weights on Thursday and swam Friday and Saturday. Granted, Saturday was only 60 laps because the pool was too crowded and at one point there were 4 unevenly-matched people trying to swim circuit in my lane and I don't even want to talk about how annoying that was, but I still did it.

80 laps this morning, and I plan to do pilates and weights tomorrow morning. I'm going to do some ab exercises tonight too. So I'm getting this week off to a good start.

It's still really hard to swim in the mornings. I got to sleep around midnight last night and finally dragged my butt out of bed at 6 AM (my alarm went off the first time at 5:30). Out the door by 6:20. Packing my bags the night before helps. It also helps to know that getting to the gym by 6:50 means I miss rush hour traffic.

Momentum Can Be Fleeting

Ever since I started my new job I have had the hardest time getting into some sort of exercise routine. I have about an hour and a half of commuting every day in the car and that kind of saps my will to live. I generally like to drive, but not in rush hour, in bumper to bumper traffic, feeling like I'm killing the clutch of my new car and getting aggravated at the stupid STUPID people that I share the road with. I also sometimes maybe have a touch of the road rage.

So by the time I get home I really just want to make my dinner and plop in front of the TV, or maybe take a stab at tidying up my room. Or sometimes I drive down to Providence after work to hang out with my boyfriend. Also, now I have real work where I use my brain all day and I'm still acclimating to that because seriously, it's wearing me out. I went to law school and work and had an internship and headed the Health Law Society and helped out with mock trial and moot court and all those competitions, you would think I could handle using my brain 5 days a week. Apparently not.

So basically the yoga and the strength training hasn't been happening so much.

Then there's the swimming. I didn't go last Monday because I don't remember why. I'm sure it was a good reason, or at least I justified it as such.

Tuesday I swam. Yay! 104 laps because I'm a rock star and didn't feel like stopping at 100. Then I got a half migraine because I'm still trying to figure out how much to eat for this whole morning swimming thing and apparently whatever I ate wasn't enough.

Tuesday night I was in Providence and in order to go swimming on Wednesday, I would have had to have left Jason's at 5:30 AM. Um, no.

Thursday - Thursday was the dumbest. I had my gym bag and my work bag all packed, and my breakfast and lunch all set to grab from the fridge. All I needed was to pull on my swimsuit and eat a little something before driving to the pool. However, I forgot to reset my alarm and woke up an hour late. Hmph!

Friday, well, let's just say a little friend came to visit on Thursday and I just didn't swim on Friday. I know I don't want people swimming in the pool with me when that's going on with them, so I'm showing the same courtesy. Do unto others and such.

And here we are at Saturday and I'm sitting on Jason's couch trying to get some work done for one of my jobs. To my credit, the state of his apartment and my pent up energy has so far resulted in him now having a clean bathroom and two loads and counting of clean laundry. So at least I'm doing that rather than rooting around in his candy stash.

My point is, this has become the excuse blog as of late. I'm rediscovering how easy it is to lose momentum. I think about how good my momentum was before when this whole weight loss thing was pretty much all I really had to think about. My schedule was set and I was in control. Now my schedule is haphazard and my brain is being pulled 50 different ways and some days I just want to sleep for another hour instead of drag myself to the pool.

But we're about to start a new week. A new week, all sparkling fresh with newness. I will inaugurate the new week with a Monday morning swim. And I will continue throughout the week because swimming makes me happy and strong, and not swimming makes me feel like a lump and feels me with this dread of gaining back this weight that I have worked so hard to lose. I feel a bit like Scarlett O'Hara, but she knew what was up when she said, "Tomorrow is
another day." Losing weight is my own personal Rhett Butler.

182.2

My roommate commented to me last night how much it really looks like I'm losing weight. She could tell before, but it's just getting really noticeable.

On that note, the scale this morning read 182.2. It's not my official weigh-in, but is notable because it means I've lost exactly 20 pounds since January 31. In the weirdest way, I'm freaked out. 185 was the magic number before. It was the lowest I got during the summer of 2005 the last time I lost weight. For the past couple of weeks, my weight has been consistently under 185. I'm greedy for it to keep going down, but at the same time my immediate, gut reaction this morning was to say out loud, "Well, that's a little scary."

Why? Why is it scary? Because I'm becoming not the fat girl anymore? Maybe soon I won't even be the chubby girl anymore? I don't really have an answer and I'm kind of surprised about the trepidation I feel. Not that I'm going to stop my efforts. I want to get down to 160. But I'm a little freaked out.

Toenail

80 laps this morning. And let me tell you, it was kind of rough. Not only have I not really done laps regularly for 3 weeks, but I am not used to working out in the morning anymore. My body was kind of wondering why I wasn't still at home in bed. This is going to take some getting used to.

However, other than being ravenously hungry*, I feel really great right now with the endorphins. I love endorphins.

The Y is much better in the morning and I had my own lane for about half of my workout. I forgot my hairbrushes today and discovered that my hair looks pretty much the same when I blow dry it while running my fingers through it. Good to know.

I am convinced that the fates have been conspiring against me to prevent me from working out. From the Y not being lap swimmer friendly in the evenings during the week when I could only go in the evenings, to my boyfriend being in a nasty car accident, to the most recent toenail incident.

***Warning: the following is kind of icky. I'm just sayin'.***

About 6 years ago, I ripped off my big toenail on my left foot. Honestly, it really didn't hurt that bad when it happened, it was just unattractive. The nail has never grown back right and I've suffered through many summers of wearing sandals while trying to hide my toe. Last summer, I discovered that I could get a fake nail and I was so, so happy because I could have cute painted toenails for the summer and no one ever knew one was a fake.

Well, the first guy who did it just filled in the nail bed on top of the little nail nubbin that was there. It looked great and natural. The woman who did it this year (about a month ago, actually) put an acrylic tip on top of the nubbin and then filled in the rest. I didn't like it as much this year because the nail stood up really high from the nail bed and occasionally I stubbed it. However, it seemed liveable.

On Monday night I planned to do about a half hour of yoga and pilates, followed by a half hour of strength training. On my way to doing a teastand, my standing-too-high-off-the-nail-bed toenail caught on the yoga mat and pulled back. I collapsed and grabbed my foot. Blood was already pooling around the edges of the nail. Sure enough, the fake acrylic AND my little nubbin of a nail had pulled completely away from the nail bed and are now hanging on by a thread.

So now I'm kind of stumped as to what to do. I cut the acrylic down as much as I could, but I can't soak my toe in acetone to get it off because, um, ow. I guess I'll just have to wait and see if it heals and then go from there. I'm worried that after this I won't even have a nubbin to attach a fake nail to. My grand idea is to see if a plastic surgeon could put in some sort of permanent implant. But that's a little frivolous for my current financial situation.

***End of grossness***

As of today, I am back in the pool in the mornings, assuming I can keep waking up at Freaking Insane AM.


* I ate some pineapple before I left home, which is my normal pre-workout snack, but I may need to add something else.

Life

I hate when life dictates that not only shall there be no working out this week, but that I will also be eating out a lot and not really controlling my food. Oh sure, I could have gotten a salad at Longhorn, but when you're at a STEAKHOUSE, it seems kind of rude to order salad. Like, maybe the super steak chef would spit in my dressing-on-the-side or something. And I don't really feel like eating salads at 9 AM at IHOP.

Let me explain. This past week has been crazy. My boyfriend was in a nasty car accident on Wednesday night. He is fine, but his car is totaled. When we finally got out of the hospital at 8:30 the next morning, we headed to the nearest breakfast place for food because we were both starving. I got an omelet and pancakes. And it was good. I only ate half the omelet, so that counts for something.

Then later that day we were out and about, stopping by the tow lot to get his belongings out of his smashed up car and checking out car dealerships for his next big purchase. We were still pretty tired, so we went to Outback for dinner. I got a burger. And it was good. As a disclaimer, I substituted salad for the fries (the Wasabi salad. If you go to Outback, try it. It's really yummy). I also only ate half my hamburger bun.

Friday was fine, since I was at work and just ate my normal healthy food. But because of the chaos the swims that were supposed to happen Thursday and Friday mornings obviously didn't.

Saturday morning I ate Kashi oatmeal. Good choice, yes?

Then we went out and I bought a new car. Actually, that was the plan all along for Saturday since I'm driving to work every day now and need a more reliable car. Jason used the opportunity to check out the 2007's as well. After the purchase, which, you know, takes HOURS, we were starving and went to the Longhorn Steakhouse down the street from the dealership. I got another burger. This time I only ate half the burger and I got a baked potato with the toppings on the side instead of fries.

Saturday night we went to a Mexican place and I got fajitas, but I didn't eat all the tortillas, I didn't eat all the cheese and I didn't eat all the sour cream. I also brought home half of my grilled meat and onions.

So really, I think I did not too bad for not actually ordering the salad option at every meal. According to my scale I haven't gained anything yet and I'm hoping that starting this week off right with a swim in the morning will stave off any gain. I'm looking forward to being back in my healthy groove. Sometimes life just really gets in the way.

Lesson Learned

Last night I discovered that going to the Y when there are only 2 lanes open for lap swimming is a bad idea. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks early evening is a good time to go swimming. They have morning lap swim with all 6 lanes available and I'm sure that's when the hard core swimmers go. And hat's when I'll be going from now on.

I'm going to be b***hy swimmer girl for a moment and complain, so just move along if you'd rather not read a tirade.

First of all, midway through my workout, this dad and his kids decided to cross the lap swim lanes to get across the pool. So fine. You wait until the swimmers have passed and then you go. But no. Two of the boys went just as I was getting to the end, and then the third little boy vaulted off the lane line into the middle of the lane, right in front of me. If he had jumped a couple of seconds later, he would have landed on top of me. I know kids are rambunctious, but Dad was standing RIGHT NEXT TO HIM, just watching him go over the lane line. I popped up and the dad said, "Oh, sorry about that." I was the only one in the lane at that point. Would it have been awful to, you know, hang onto your kid for a few seconds and wait for me to go by?

Then about 10 minutes later, I was in the middle of a 200 when I realized that there were a man and a woman standing at the end of the lane, blocking me from doing a flipturn. Okaaay....

I popped my head up and the woman said, "We can swim a circuit." For those of you who don't know, circuit swimming is basically what you do during swim team practice when there are a bunch of people in one lane. You space the swimmers and swim up the right side of the lane and back down the left. Now that works just fine when you're all about the same skill level and going about the same speed, but it is a disaster when levels are mismatched. As shown last night.

The woman said, "You go first because you're stronger." At this point I was still standing in the middle of the lane about 10 feet from the end because they were still blocking the entire end. I asked, "Well, can I have some space to push off?" I think that was when they realized they were blocking the entire lane because they looked surprised and moved out of the way.

So I started swimming. The woman came after me, swimming a leisurely freestyle. Then came the man, swimming a veeeery slow breaststroke. So basically I did a 50 and caught up to the man, but as I was going to pass him, the woman came swimming by on the other side, blocking me. My only choice was to stop in the middle of the lap and wait.

At that point I realized that continuing to swim was pointless, and I got out. Only 64 laps.

Usually when I swim, everyone just waits if there are already two people in a lane because they recognize that circuit swimming doesn't really work, but I guess they both wanted to swim really badly RIGHT then. Annoying.

Let's hope swimming in the mornings is less chaotic.

Back in the Saddle...Again

Well this has just been crazy time for me and not a good time for exercising. Basically in the span of 8 days I interviewed, second interviewed, and then got a new job. Then the next day my pool closed for renovations.

Work started on Wednesday. I spent most of Saturday shopping for business casual clothes. For the past year I've been working at jobs where I could wear jeans every day if I wanted and I only needed to dress up occasionally. Add to that the 18 pounds I've lost since January and basically nothing besides my jeans fit me right anymore. I found a bunch of skirts and discovered that at least in the skirts I'm a real, genuine size 12. Yay!

I have entirely given up on ever finding slacks that don't look completely freakish on me. My bum and thighs are just too big and my waist is too small. It doesn't make me feel particularly fat, though, since I remember being thin and having that problem too. I have 2 pairs of Lane Bryant slacks in 16 that are falling off of me. I popped in there on Saturday to see if I could fit into 14 dress slacks, but LB 14's are officially too big for me. Well, not their jeans. I still wear their jeans. But their slacks are too big, which is good, but also bad since they're the only store that takes the .7 hip to waist ratio into account. I've heard Banana Republic is good, but they're pricey and I wasn't willing to pay a lot for what I hope are simply interim clothes.

The bad thing about the job is it's in the suburbs, which means no more mile walk to and from the T, and no chance to walk home from work. Now I'm driving everywhere and feeling kind of guilty as I add myself to the long line of commuters and wish I had a Prius. I was planning on using this week after the pool closed to search for a gym and to walk the 3.2 miles home from work every day for exercise. Instead, I've been driving every day and trying to find the least crowded routes to and from work. I've been bone tired when I've gotten home and haven't done any sort of exercise at all this week. I've tried to eat on the low end of my calorie range, but I admit to indulging in treats, particularly at Jason's choir potluck on Wednesday night where there was decadent chocolate cake and pavlova.

Despite the crazy week, I haven't actually gained any weight, but I haven't really lost any weight or inches either. The lack of exercise has also taken a toll on my mental well-being. I miss my endorphins.

Today I went to go check out a gym on my lunch hour. As the sales rep was showing me around I started having a sneaking suspicion that there was no way I could afford this gym. From the pretty, dark wood lockers, to the AMAZING pool with the windowed ceiling, I wasn't really shocked when she told me the monthly fee was $105. And that was a special discounted rate available for people who join this month.

I went back to work discouraged since I had just been planning on joining and maybe even going for a swim tomorrow morning. I looked online for what else was in the area and discovered the local YMCA, also just down the street from work. Ah, the trusty Y. It's not fancy, but it's got a pool and locker rooms with changing rooms, which is more than I can say for the fancy clubs I belonged to briefly in downtown DC and Boston. I'm very happy that so many women are so very comfortable just walking around with it all hanging out, but I do not happen to be one of those women and I am tired of changing in the handicapped stall of the bathroom. The Y is $52.50 a month, and I can cancel any time I want with no penalty, also unlike those fancy clubs.

Starting Monday, I'm back in the pool. Since I don't have the option of walking anywhere anymore, I'm going to have to step up the amount of yoga, pilates and weights that I do at home in the evening just to maintain the exercise level I was at. No more being lazy right when I get home.

Visual Aids

I'm starting to think that I am a spatial and visual thinker. I can usually size up an area and figure out what will fit there or see how to make something fit. Like when I was helping my scientist boyfriend and his scientist brother move a futon and while they scratched their heads looking from the futon to the car and back to the futon, I figured out how to angle it so it would fit perfectly in the back of the car.

Fat Blogger just used an image that really clicked with me because it is such a striking image. He has lost 10 pounds, which equals 40 sticks of butter. Using those terms I've lost 64 sticks of butter. That's a lot of butter. I almost wish I could buy it and pile it on my kitchen counter as a reminder of what I have accomplished.

I know slow and steady wins the race and all that, but sometimes I wish I could drop the remaining 25 pounds in the next couple of weeks and be done with it already. I'll still eat healthy and exercise, but I just want the weight gone. I want a less hefty body to move around every day. I want to wear the cute clothes that I'm barely fitting into now. Today is just a frustrated day with this whole process.

Disturbing Stats

I just read that the average American consumer eats 3 burgers and 4 orders of fries each week. A typical American child gets 1/4 of his/her vegetables in the form of French fries or potato chips.

Yikes.

Back away from the drive thru, America.


100 laps last night. This is the last week my pool is open, which is sad and also a hassle. Also, since I'm not really sure what's on the horizon for me as far as home and work locations, I'm reticent to join a gym that doesn't have a good cancellation policy. I know, good luck finding that, Kelly. Next week I will be checking out gyms.

Jason told me last night that he would really like to see me at 110 laps. He pointed out that if I added 2 laps a day, I would be up to 160 in a month.

Um, k. My response to him was, "You know what I would like to see from you?"

Pause. "Any sort of activity at all?"

"Exactly."

Yeah, buddy, you start working out AT ALL and then we'll talk about strategies and work out plans. I'm trying to encourage him to be more healthy, but that comment about getting up to 110 laps just made me laugh.

Pizza

I ate some pizza last night and my body is not happy. I helped a friend move and she bought us pizza afterwards to say thanks. I had planned on leaving before then, but I wanted to stay and hang out for a little bit longer since she left town this morning. And I was hungry. Yesterday was one of those days when I could not stay full, no matter what, so my growling stomach was not helping.

Last night my stomach was hurting and it's still not feeling great. Plus, I'm so lethargic. Of course, I stayed up late, but with the amount of sleep I had I shouldn't be this run down. Lots of carbs, sodium and fat. Yum!

I need to remember how the crappy food makes me feel, especially now that I'm used to the healthier stuff.

Weigh-In

Just as I expected, the holy grail of 185 or under is not to be mine this week. 185.6 this morning, despite keeping my sodium under 1,000 mg yesterday. However, another 2.125" is gone. Another .6 inches and my waist will be in the 20's. When I was last in good shape my waist was 27" and my hips were 40", so once I get to those measurements again I will know that no matter what the mirror tells me on my fat days, I look pretty darn good.

I feel like I've been kind of lazy this week because I've only been swimming twice. However, I did an hour of yoga and weights last night and I know I'm going swimming for sure on Saturday. And I'm helping a friend move tonight. According to SparkPeople you can burn 112 calories in 10 minutes by lugging boxes around. I'm debating whether or not to actually count it in my exercise tally for the day since I have a feeling a few super-efficient guys are going to show up and minimize my personal physical involvement in the whole thing. We'll see how it goes.

But back to the lazy. For some reason I have been extra super tired this week and I'm not really sure why. I've been getting the same amount of sleep as usual, but instead of waking up at my normal time I keep hitting snooze over and over until I'm stumbling into work at 9:30, still feeling like I could have slept for a couple more hours. I feel a little more with it today and managed to get into work early to make up some hours, but I still feel tired.

Simpletons

I was pretty appalled to learn that Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie were going to be counselors at a fat camp in the next season of The Simple Life. There are just so many things wrong with that. One of the first thing that comes to my mind is poking fun at the poor overweight kids who are there. Paris and Nicole and the camera crews that follow them around don't seem to be the most sensitive folks.

My fears were confirmed with the ad for the show I just saw on E. The head of the camp said that every counselor had to participate in giving the kids a colonic. So the scene is of Paris looking on, horrified, as Nicole, looking horrified herself, faces the rear end of a very large teenage boy and then you see his face as he groans and there's some sort of cartoon sound effect to go along with it.

Ha ha ha, let's laugh at the fat kid getting the colonic. Grrrr!

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

While I managed to stay within my calorie range yesterday, I'm not exactly proud of what I ate. It was yummy, though. There was a lot of cheese. It was a very cheese-filled day. Mozzarella cheese and Irish cheese and cheesecake.

But, you know, one day in a stretch of being very, very good isn't so bad. Plus, I weighed myself this morning and my weight is still the same so the cheese hasn't caught up with me yet. I'm starting to think that I'm moving so much with my swimming and my weights and my sometimes yoga and pilates, that a bad day here and there isn't going to kill me. And it wasn't SO bad. Like I said, I stayed within my range.

In other news, I swam 80 laps on Saturday instead of the 100 that I was planning to swim. About 50 laps in this gaggle of teenagers descended on the pool. There must have been 30 of them. They all got into the diving pool and cheered each person on who went off the board by chanting his or her name incessantly. And this one girl let out a BLOOD-CURDLING scream every single time someone dove in. Or came near her. Or breathed.

This is another reason indoor pools suck. The echoing and reverberation was intense. So I swam a little more in my set, did a cool down 200 and huffily left. The lifeguard gave me a desperately sad look as I walked out, silently pleading with me to take her with me.

This is another tick in the "pro" list for joining a gym after the pool closes on the 24th. No teenagers.

And yes, I realize I'm a crotchety old lady.

Uno Mas

Down 2 pounds and 1" this week. In case you're keeping score, that's 16.2 pounds and 21.75" since January 31.

So I don't want to jinx anything, but 1 more pound and we're back in Fantasyland for me. At the end of summer 2005 I reached my lowest weight since, oh I don't know, junior year of college (1998-ish). I weighed myself at a friend's house and was 185. Then I started giving into my Chicken McNugget cravings and sinking back into a bit of depression and working out once a month or so.

I know the odds are that I will lose a few more inches and no pounds next week since that seems to be my pattern. One week I lose a bunch of inches and minimal pounds, the next week my pounds are down and there isn't much action on the inches front. But how awesome would it be to step on the scale next week and see "185"? Pretty awesome, in my world.

I've been pretty easy-going about the pounds coming off since I know I'm gaining muscle and this is a slow process and all that sensible stuff, but I would really like for just that one pound to disappear this week. That doesn't seem like too much to ask, right? Here's hoping.

Tired

Tonight I only did 90 laps. Why, you ask? Because my muscles are tired. I decided on what routine to do before I got to the pool, but somewhere around lap 38 I realized there was no way I was going to get to 100. It's not that my limbs are actually sore, but rather that they're just tired. Very, very tired. Every single stroke was an effort tonight.

My body is going to have a nice two day break since I won't be able to swim tomorrow or Friday night (I am doing a bit of pilates tomorrow morning though). I fully expect a solid 100 laps on Saturday afternoon. Hear that, body?

Tonight's routine:
150 swim
200 kick - free up, fly back
8 50's on 1:00

100 swim, R :20
200 swim, R :30
300 swim, R :40
300 swim, R :30
200 swim, R :20
100 swim (in 1:50 tonight. Again, tired.)

150 kick
150 swim

And then I dragged myself out of the pool and collapsed in a puddle of red TYR suit in the locker room.

Sometimes You CAN Fight Genetics

In my family, we joke a lot about spilling something on ourselves whenever we eat. Someone always does.

I would like to note that I ate an entire container of tomato soup* for lunch while wearing a white shirt and I did not spill any soup on me!

I'm just going to ignore the fact that this occurence may be due, in part, to the loss of my rockin' chest through this whole weight loss endeavor.

Sigh.


*Au Bon Pain Tomato Basil Bisque. Sooo good AND reduced sodium.

I Miss Swimming Outside

In my quest for a new pool to start going to after my current pool shuts down for renovations, I found Swimmers Guide, a site with information on pools around the world. Pretty neat. Unfortunately, it confirmed what I already basically knew. There are very few pools in my area. Even fewer that will let the public use them without jumping through crazy hoops. And even fewer for someone who actually works during the day.

There are times when I truly miss living in the Southwest, where pools were abundant and so was my tan. When I moved to Chicago after graduating from college I was so distressed to discover that up north they only have indoor pools. In dank, chlorine-smelling rooms. I've kind of gotten used to the indoor pools, but that doesn't mean I like them.

At my college, swimming was a big deal, so even the student rec center had an amazing pool. It was huge - I think about 12 lanes. The best part was the filter system, which I know sounds weird, but it really was cool. All around the perimeter of the pool was a 8 inch wide grate. The pool water came up to the deck and sloshed over the edge and through the grate, where it was filtered. Now here's the cool part: it kind of sounded like ocean waves. So I would swim my laps in the warm Arizona sun, and then drip dry on a deck chair (there were about a hundred of those) with my eyes closed, imagining that I was actually at the beach.

100 laps again tonight:
150 swim
150 kick - free up, fly back

2 200's - R :30 in between, R :45 after #2
3 150's - #1 kick R: 20; #2 swim R: 20; #3 kick R: 45
5 100's on the 2:00, R :45
8 50's on the 1:00, R :45
10 25's - odds easy, evens sprint. R :10 in between each

200 swim

Plus I did some pilates and weights this morning. I'm feeling tough.

100!

100 laps tonight!

I felt great while I was doing it, but my body is feeling all fatigued now and I think I need to get to bed a litle on the early side. I modified a workout suggested by one of the people in my Swimming for Cardio team on SparkPeople. It's not a very active team for message posting, but there are some good workout ideas. I think all of those ladies could totally kick my butt in the pool.

My routine tonight:

150 swim - free
250 kick - free up, fly back

3 sets of
200, rest :30
150, rest :20
100, rest :10
50, rest :30
Set one: Build (I did the 50 in :43, which made me happy. I wasn't really swimming all out and it's been a long time since I've timed a 50 so I thought that wasn't too shabby)
Sets two and three: 200 and 150 medium, 100 sprint, 50 slow

10 25's, rest :10 - odds easy, evens sprint

200 swim

I haven't done sprints in ages and it was fun to swim all out for 25 yards.

Unreality

Just in case you thought that pictures of celebrities had anything whatsoever to do with reality.


Courtesy of Big Fat Deal.

Ego Boosting

Despite the fact that my scale is persistently adding a couple of pounds to last week's weight (hmph!), I had a good morning ego-wise. Usually I can just wear jeans to work so I haven't tried on my dress slacks in a bit. However, if I'm at my other job where I work about 8-10 hours a week, I have to be business casual Monday-Thursday. Because I've been working in such casual environments for over a year now I only have 2 pairs of slacks: the regular slacks, and the too tight Ann Taylor Loft slacks that used to fit, but haven't for awhile.

This morning I tried on the regular slacks and they are falling off of me. The only thing keeping them on is my HUGE rear end that continues to be huge and always will be huge and was even pretty huge when I was a size 7 way back when. Whatever. I'm bootylicious. I can handle that.

So I tried on the Ann Taylor slacks and they look super cute again. Hooray!

In other news, 90 laps last night. I did a routine, just to see if I could, and paid for it with a sore throat and more of a cough last night. I guess my body isn't quite up to snuff yet. Did I mention I'm a bad patient? Despite feeling every stroke in my tired arms, I did manage to do my last 100 of the set(laps 76-80) in 1:37, so I'm happy about that.

Emotional Eating

I don't usually think of myself as much of an emotional eater. Sometimes I recgonize that I soothe myself with something tasty, but mostly, I eat from boredom and wanting something to do with myself. I can be very antsy and not want to sit still and snacking gives me something to do. Since I like food and food has always been a BIG part of my family's lives, it's what my mind turns to first when I'm bored. This is one of the reasons I crochet or play on my computer while I watch TV. Despite being fidgety, I'm not one of those skinny fidgety people because I consume calories as a result of my fidgetiness.

I got some bad news recently that has taken a bit of a toll on my hopefulness and confidence career-wise. Last night I went to the grocery store and on the way there I found myself thinking about all of the things I wanted to buy. Not the fruit and veggies and healthy foods that were on my list, but the yummy glowing rotisserie chicken leg quarters and a large container of deep dark chocolate ice cream.

Because I am fairly self-aware with regard to eating and eating disorders and unhealthy patterns and such, I recognized that immediately for what it was and frankly, it kind of stunned me. Right then, in that moment, food was what was going to make me feel better. Or at least that's what my head was telling me.

Once I got to the grocery store, I admit to lingering around the chicken, but I didn't even go into the ice cream aisle. It didn't help that I was actually hungry and knew I wouldn't be eating dinner for a couple of more hours. As soon as I got home I had a healthy snack and told myself that was ALL I was getting. No Thin Mint cookies sitting ever-so-temptingly on my shelf.*

So I'm proud of myself for staying on the straight and narrow, calorie-wise, but I was a little surprised at how readily my mind turned to food for solace. I don't know why I was so surprised since when I was neck-deep in depression I also happened to weigh 235 pounds. And my family is jam-packed with crummy relationships with food. Maybe I had hoped that somehow that particular quirk had passed me by.

I'm also proud of myself for meeting up with Jason and others, going to a Mexican restaurant and getting a salad, dressing on the side. I discovered that salsa is a pretty good salad dressing, actually.


*Speaking of which, I think this is the longest Girl Scout cookies have ever lasted in my home. I bought 3 boxes a month or so ago, and I just finished my box of Samoas** and am about a third of the way through the Thin Mints. I've been good at doling them out in portions on some random day when I let myself have a treat. Plus, truth be told, Jason ate about a third of the Samoas.

**Excuse me. Caramel Delites.

Water, Baby!

I'm back in the pool as of last night, which I'm very happy about. I planned to do 60 laps since I was still snotty and coughing (and feeling oh so pretty!). Once I started going, though, I realized I was okay. It felt SO amazing to be back in the pool. Only one week out of the water and starting my first lap was like coming home. No wonder my mom calls me "Water Baby."

My goal was to do a short warm up, 5 easy 200's and a short cool down. However, I was only coughing a tiny bit in between sets and wasn't having a problem while I was actually swimming, so I just kept going. 80 laps in all.

150 swim
250 kick

200
300 (because it just felt good)
400 (because I wanted to see if I could do it. I could and my time wasn't too awful.)
200

250 kick
250 swim

So far today I've walked about 4 miles and I really need to go to the grocery store and do some laundry so I'm calling it good in the exercise department. I'm seriously running out of food. I've been eating McDonald's yogurt parfaits for breakfast the last two mornings, which aren't the worst things in the world, but I miss my Stonyfield Farms yogurt. It just tastes better. However, 320 calories and $2.10 for 2 yogurt parfaits is not too shabby, although the blueberries taste like soggy mothballs and I always pick them out. Not that I know what soggy mothballs taste like. But if I had to take a guess I would say the blueberries in the McDonaldd's yogurt parfaits are a fair estimation.

I joined a May challenge at SparkPeople and in order to get my points I have to do strength training twice a week. I am discovering that just like cardio and eating right, taking the time to do weights is something that I have to make a habit of scheduling into my day. I haven't been very diligent with that, so hopefully this challenge will motivate me. I mean, those are 2 easy points that I would just feel silly not getting. My plan is to get up early two mornings and do it before work. I am not a morning person and know there will be some wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Woo Hoo

Apparently being sick agrees with me. I'm down 3 pounds this week!

Just As I Really Get Going

90 laps on Saturday:

200 swim
200 kick - free up, fly back

100 free, rest :30
200 free, rest :35
300 free, rest :40
400 free, rest :45
300 free, rest :35
200 free, rest :25
100 free (in 1:40)

150 kick - free up, fly back
100 swim

After a great week last week exercise-wise, I have a cold this week. I did get out yesterday while the weather was beautiful and walked a few miles down by the river. Today, though, I feel worse and am just sitting around in my PJ's, working from home. I'm glad I have that luxury.

I'm hoping that tomorrow maybe I can either walk a couple of miles again or even go to the pool for a short swim. I hate being sick, but everyone else around me has been sick so why should I be any different? Today is supposed to be my super high-calorie day with the calorie cycling, but I'm just going to hit the bottom of my range (around 1400) and call it good.

So today I'm feeling kind of annoyed to not be able to swim and a little stir-crazy. Sometimes it's nice to have a lazy day at home, but only when it's voluntary.

Magical Elixir

Seriously, could someone bottle endorphins? Or hook me up to an endorphin IV? Or give me a little vial and an endorphin junkie syringe? Because after my swim tonight I was BUZZing. I felt strong and powerful and like I wasn't going to take any crap from no one, not nohow.

I've since calmed down.

I found this great swim workout site. Since all of the workouts are a little above my abilities, I modified one tonight to get 2250 yards, or 90 laps.

200 swim
200 kick - 50 back;150 free up, fly back

1 200
3 150's - 150 kick free up, fly back; 150 swim; 150 kick free up, fly back
5 100's on the 2:00
rest 1:00
7 50's on the 1:00
rest 2:00
8 25's - fly for 1, 4 and 7 (and I just have to say by that 7th 25 it was a miracle that I could get my arms out of the water. I was probably flopping around just a bit. Or maybe a lot.)

150 swim


Tonight my arm is a little sore from all of this swimming. I've iced it, but I'm taking tomorrow off from the swimming and just letting it rest. Then it's back to the pool on Saturday afternoon.

My roommate and I had a little debate tonight about the term "lap." In my world, lap is one length of the pool. In her world lap equals a complete back and forth and length equals one length of the pool. Which I guess when I think about it makes sense since a lap around a track is a complete circle so a lap around the pool should be the complete circle too, right? But I swear my coaches called the 25 yard stretch a "lap."

Oh, the exciting things we talk about in my house.

Wednesday Swim

90 laps last night.

I have been really making an effort to mix up my workouts lately. Last night I did the following (inspired by Heather at Funnymoods, who is way more hardcore than me seeing as how she's training for a triathlon, but is a good resource for workout ideas):

200 free
200 kick - 150 free up, fly back; 50 backstroke

100 free, rest :30
200 free, rest :35
300 free, rest :40
400 free, rest :45
300 free, rest :40
200 free, rest :30
100 free

200 kick - 150 free up, fly back; 50 backstroke

The thing that I think I'm most proud of is, well, that I did it, but also that I managed to do the last 100 in the set at 1:40. So even though I was pretty pooped, I kept my speed up to a decent* level.

I'm trying to decide if I'm going to walk home from work today or hit the pool again. On the one hand, I know it's good to mix it up and keep it interesting for my body, plus my legs are pretty sore today and may be useless in the pool. On the other hand, I feel like I should take advantage of the pool while I can. I found out Tuesday that the last day it's open is May 24th now, rather than the 6th, so I'll have a couple more weeks before I have to join a gym.

* Sometimes it kind of depresses me that my idea of a decent speed now has absolutely no relation to what a decent speed was when I competed. However, I have to remind myself that I'm heavier, I'm older, and I haven't competed in a long time. I really look forward to shedding 32 more pounds and totally zooming through the water. At one end of the pool they have posted the records set by various members of the high school swim team that swims there and it's really good inspiration.

Cheesecake!

Monday I did strength training because the pool was closed. Soreness. Then yesterday I wound up walking about 4 miles over the course of the day. Then last night I went swimming, but I was kind of dragging and I only swam 70 laps. When I told my roommate that, she laughed at my "only" 70 laps. Well, it's disappointing to me because last week I did 2 days of 100 laps. I'm going again tonight so hopefully I'll do better.

I ate some cheesecake last night. Shhh. Don't tell. Yesterday was my high cal day and I totally saved up. Jason had a gift card to the Cheesecake Factory so I got the Santa Fe Salad with no tortilla strips and the dressing on the side (which I barely used) and then splurged with half a piece of Godiva chocolate cheesecake.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Heaven.

If you frequent the CCF, then I'm going to tell you right now that you do NOT want to know how many calories are in a piece of their cheesecake. If you are a masochist, however, you can find calorie counts at Calorie King.

The thing that surprised me is that desserts like the Apple Dumpling and the Blackout Cake are actually much worse calorie-wise than the majority of their cheesecakes. I would think, you know, CHEESE cake. Wouldn't that be just about the worst thing you could eat? Apparently not.

A Little Glitch in the Plan

I just found out today that the pool I swim at is closing for renovations on May 6! To be honest, it really, really needs the renovations, but that's a good 2 months before any of the public outdoor pools open for the summer.

So I think I may be joining a gym. To me, the money is worth it at this point because I don't want to get off track. I'm in my swimming zone/weight loss zone. Plus, knowing I've already paid for the month will be a good motivator to get me to the pool. And as another plus, the gym will be open much more flexible hours than the community pool, which is open for lap swimming only a couple of hours a day. That means I can fit the gym around my schedule instead of the other way around, which is what I've been doing for the past few months.

I am really going to miss the convenience, though. The community pool is only a block from my house and I just trot on over there. Depending on which club I decide to go with I'll either be taking a couple of trains to get there or driving 20 minutes. While typing that I'm pretty sure I just decided to do the one where I drive for 20 minutes. Plus, the suburban clubs are sometimes a teensy bit cheaper than the clubs in the city.

For the last plus, it will also give me the flexibility to hop on the elliptical if I just don't feel like getting in the pool one day and I want to mix it up a little.

There seem to be a lot of pluses to this plan. Hopefully the monthly rate won't be too obscene.

It's A Good Pain

I have one word for you: Lunges.

My bum hurts.

In other news, I'm down 3.2 pounds from my official weigh-in last Thursday! Looks like my additional muscle has finally decided to start proving itself and getting rid of some of that pesky fat.

Tuesday: 1787 calories; 100 laps

I kicked my butt last night in the pool, in the name of losing 15 pounds by Memorial Day. I've been getting a little complacent with my workouts so I am working on mixing up my routine. Usually I do my warm up, long set, kicking, cool down. Last night I got in some backstroke, although the pool has been packed lately and swimming backstroke while sharing a lane isn't the most fun thing in the world. I wanted to do some butterfly, but again, sharing a lane. My arms pretty much span the lane so there's really no way to do butterfly unless I have my own. This was my routine last night:

Warm up:
250 swim - free
300 kick - free up, fly back
Swim:
4 50's - backstroke
250 kick - free up, fly back
400 - free
5 50's kick - 3 backstroke, 2 free up, fly back
6 100's - free, moderately fast, 20 seconds rest
Cool down:
250 swim - free

I did a little butterfly on Saturday and was fine, but last night when I did backstroke I discovered something. It hurts. My left arm is fine now when I do free, but last night it popped and hurt during my follow through on the backstroke stroke. I've never had a problem with back before, so this is new. I had planned to do 6 50's back last night, but after 4 my arm just couldn't do anymore. I iced it when I got home. Maybe I just need to work back up to it since it's been awhile. Hopefully the problem will go away like it did for free.

Mixing it up and doing fast sets made me feel strong and exhilerated after my workout, instead of exhausted.

I put a chart above my stats showing my current calorie cyclying...um...cycle. As you can see, yesterday I ate 1787 calories, which, if you don't know, is an OBSCENE amount of food, especially when you're eating healthy and your food doesn't have a lot of calories. I found myself looking around the kitchen last night thinking, "Okaaaay...what can I eat now?"

My official weigh in isn't until Friday morning, but as of this morning I'm down another pound at 193.4. Woot! Apparently eating piles of food is working. Who knew?

Just Plugging Away

I'm just doing it. The eating well, the exercising. It's happening. Every day it is kind of a struggle. I feel all proud of myself and disciplined, but know that it's a slippery slope full of chicken McNuggets and ice cream back to eating whatever I want again.

I have some accountability now - aside from this blog. I joined a SparkPeople challenge to lose 15 pounds by Memorial Day. We all have a buddy to check our food and exercise logs and email us motivation. I think it's funny that my buddy is named "Kerry." I'm an only child and to compensate I invented a whole slew of imaginary brothers and sisters when I was very small, including an identical twin sister named Kerry. SparkPeople Kerry doesn't look a thing like me, and she would probably think I was completely nuts and not want to be my challenge buddy anymore if I told her that little tidbit, but I like knowing it.

While I've been losing inches like crazy, the weight hasn't been exactly falling off. 8 pounds in 2 months. But 12.3 inches. I always have to throw in that "but" to explain to myself why my small jeans fit me now. So this whole 15 pounds in the next 6 weeks or so is pretty daunting. I have a few thoughts up my sleeve:

1) The firm belief that my increased muscle will finally kick in and start burning more calories like lean muscle is supposed to do.

2) My little 5 pound weights are coming out from under my bed. I've been great with the cardio, but have totally slacked on the strength training. I can work my arms while I'm watching TV and if my hours with Denise Austin (courtesy of the Lifetime channel and my Tivo) taught me nothing, it's always best to multitask. Work your triceps while in a squat. Do bicep curls while you lunge around the room. My theory: more lean muscle = MORE calories burned.

3) My weekends off have now become just Sundays off and I'm still going to be very mindful of what I'm eating on Sundays.

If I don't make 15 pounds, I'm not going to flip out, but it's nice to have a goal. And to have buddy accountability.

If I do lose the 15, that would take me down to 180. Whoa. Um, I can't really remember when I was that weight. Junior year of college? Maybe? Ooo, now I really want it!

Control Freak

I am really getting boring with this whole weight loss thing. Last night I bored my roommate and my boyfriend to death talking about my new favorite website and how cool all the tools are and how I love keeping track of all of this stuff.

I don't know what it is. I think eating healthy and exercising and monitoring it all very closely with a very specific plan in mind gives me a much needed sense of control. Over the past couple of years I have become much less crazed about having a plan for everything. A year and a half ago I moved to DC with a clear plan in mind about how I was going to network and search and pound the pavement and do what it took to find a job in health care law and/or policy.

However, meeting my boyfriend a few days before I left Boston threw a whole wrench in the works. I spent the next several months doing a long-distance relationship and trying to figure out if I was moving back to Boston or staying in DC. My nicely laid plans for the future that I smugly thought I had figured out back when I decided to move to DC were suddenly all out the window.

Add to that the stresses of a long-distance relationship and feeling like I didn't know what exactly our status was with regard to the future and then not being able to find ANY sort of work in DC for the first several weeks I was there. I felt out of control.

I stopped keeping track of anything. I started popping over to the nearby McDonald's for McNuggets and Wendy's for a Frosty on a regular basis. One I started doing contract work, exhaustion set in as I crammed in the mandatory minimum 60 hours of work in 4-5 days so that I could spend every other weekend with Jason. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that the only way I get through extreme physicial stress is by regular workouts. So I joined a gym and went almost every day, which helped. I didn't lose any weight, but I maintained, which I think is pretty miraculous in a job where you sit for 12-15 hours a day.

Eventually I decided to move back to Boston and I finally realized it was okay to not have a plan. That was a major lesson I learned in DC. I have always had a plan and for the first time in my life I realized I had NO idea what was going to happen in any aspect of my life. And I was shocked to discover that I could live with that.

I moved back to Boston with the promise of another contract job and a hope that networking with the attorneys I knew here would find me something at least kind of related to what I wanted to do with my life. I hoped that my relationship would eventually get to the point where we would get married.

Now I'm sort of in a holding pattern. I think there are things on the horizon, both career and relationship-wise, but I can't really be sure. I have no control over the job thing because the market is saturated with attorneys and I am completely dependent on whether someone likes my resume enough to actually talk to me. I have little control over the relationship because, while I could leave, I don't really want to, and there is another person involved, who also has his own choices to make and freedom to do what he wants. You can't really have absolute control when someone else's emotions and desires come into play in an equal amount to yours.

Sometimes I feel like I took a giant step backward, heightened by the fact that I'm living in the same apartment I lived in right before I left Boston. Sometimes I am thrilled to be here and to have great roommates and a boyfriend who loves me. I like Boston in a way I never did before, appreciating its character and charm.

At the beginning of this year I set a goal to get healthy again, having gained back 20 of the 15 pounds I lost in 2005 (yes, that's 5 more than I lost). Keeping meticulous track of food and calories burned, and commiserating with others who are also working on weight loss, helps me to stay in control of my body when I am in control of absolutely nothing else in my life.

I think the fact that I am satiated by the diet control and am not experiencing panic attacks where my throat feels like it is closing and I can hardly breathe because I have NO IDEA where my life is headed, is a major improvement over a year and a half ago. I don't feel like the world is going to end anymore because I lack a sense of omniscience. Instead, I can be okay with not knowing.

However, apparently I'm becoming a bore.

Weighing In

Up 1.2 pounds. Boo. However, last week was kind of a no holds barred vacation in Florida so I suppose I should be happy I'm not up more considering how much fried food I ate.

However, down another inch. So, you know, building muscle is a good thing.

I just upped my calories on SparkPeople because I had really underestimated how many calories I burned per week. It seems illogical to think that increasing calories is going to add to weight loss, but if I'm not eating enough my body thinks I'm starving and holds onto the weight. Fervently. The summer I lost 15 pounds I was eating a lot of food, now that I think about it, but I was swimming and walking a lot too.

Be Nice and Share

Tonight I discovered that I'm not as selfish as I thought. I can, in fact, share a lane at the pool without wanting to hurt the person I'm sharing with.

My one criterion is that the person actually know what he or she is doing with regard to swimming. Also, it's nice if we swim at a similar pace. Someone who consistently barrels by me makes me feel kind of like a slug and usually creates a lot of wake.

Monday: 80 laps
Tuesday: 90 laps