Finally Seeing Some Results.........

When I decided to get serious and drop some of this excess weight I've been carrying around, I was adamant that this NOT become another weight-loss blog. There are some wonderful ones out there, and they are very inspirational. This one, for example. I am in awe of the fact that this woman lost over 100 pounds. She hasn't posted since she reached her goal, however, and I am curious to see how she's maintaining it. Sometimes that's harder than losing it in the first place.

Initially I started another blog, and my intention was to chronicle my weight loss journey there by blogging every day about what I ate, the exercise I did that day, my attitude, obstacles, etc. That lasted all of one day. And then I "hid" the blog. It's still there, but I didn't want to become that person who thinks of NOTHING every day but food, weight, and how to have some of one without a ton of the other. Pun intended.

Sixteen years ago, I was at what was THEN my heaviest. I joined Weight Watchers, and I lost 50 pounds. I still think their goal weight was unrealistic, but by George I reached it. I became a Weight Watchers leader, and I kept the weight off for a few years. But when I was striving to reach my goal, I was obsessive. All I thought about, cared about, talked about was how many "points" I had eaten on any given day and how many fractions of a pound I might lose. When I neared my goal, the weather was changing into fall. I had grown accustomed to wearing bicycle shorts and a t-shirt to my weekly weigh-in, but then it got too cold to do that. One week I wore jeans, but I wore bicycle shorts underneath, and when it came time to weigh in, I stripped those bad boys off right there in front of God and everybody. And we were in a church, so that's not really sacrilegious.

When I first joined WW, I lost something like 12 pounds just in the first two weeks. But that was sixteen years ago. Now I'm sixteen years older, in case you are struggling with that math.

Every time in recent memory that I've decided to get serious and lose some weight, I have become discouraged immediately by the lack of results. I'll stick with it for a week or two (or three) and then throw up my hands and say "To hell with it!" because the scale simply isn't budging.

For some reason, this time has been a little different. When I went to the doctor right before school started, I saw a scary number on the scale that I hadn't seen since right before I went into labor. I got serious (again), and once again I became discouraged when I didn't see results right away.

But I stuck with it, and now, six weeks later, I am finally seeing some results. I have lost about 12 pounds since school started, and the sacrifices aren't feeling like sacrifices anymore. I have continued to exercise every day, not only with the goal of losing weight, but also for the mental therapy it provides. I'm also trying not to be obsessive about it, which is why I won't write another blog post about eating, exercising, losing weight, etc. for a good long while. I am allowing myself the freedom to miss exercise if it just doesn't happen on any given day. I will allow myself a piece of chocolate at lunch if I think it will keep me from killing a student during fourth or fifth period.

I have sworn off alcohol, and I don't miss it. Much. Contrary to popular belief, it IS possible to have fun and be happy without an occasional beer. Or margarita. I don't promise that I will never have another beer or drink, however.

Part of my problem in the past has been that all-or-nothing attitude. If I ever missed a day of exercise, or if I succumbed and had a small piece of chocolate, or if I went out to eat and splurged, I gave up because I had "blown it." I had a bad habit of doing that even when I was a WW leader and telling other people not to do that.

Hubby has been mostly supportive. I used to try to avoid eating "diet" food in front of him, and I don't know why. I realized long ago that the only thing he really cares about is that HE gets to eat. And since he was diagnosed with diabetes, he's better off eating my kind of food anyway. Last week, when I was very ill-tempered (not at him), he didn't even notice when I put his dinner in front of him and didn't eat anything myself. [It's VERY rare that I'm that ill-tempered. It usually has the opposite effect.] It's funny, though, the things that men do. We have been in the habit for a couple of years of having a sugar-free ice cream bar after dinner every night. Then we started sharing one, and we take turns going to get the ice cream and cutting it in half.

When I started on this latest effort to lose weight, I began to cut his half waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay larger than mine [yes, I realize that makes it not a half -- college calculus be damned, I do have SOME math smarts]. But when he goes to get the ice cream, he refuses to cut my half smaller. He still makes the pieces equal, even though I have asked him not to. Some WW people would consider that a form of sabotage, but I think he just can't bring himself to cut it unfairly. A thought just occurred to me -- maybe he's trying to trick me into ALWAYS being the one to go get the ice cream. Damn, I'm slow.

At any rate, the little bit of positive results that I've seen so far have been a huge boost to my psyche. They took their sweet time getting here, but maybe now that I've started losing, I can keep it up. Down. Whatever.

We now return to our regularly scheduled sarcasm-laden blog.