Month: November 2015

No Turning Back

Monday night I went to my gym to meet with the manager and get my certificate for finishing the 60-day challenge.  I had the highest percentage of weight loss at that location, so the manager also set me up for my free year membership and told me I have five personal trainer sessions for free.  I haven’t scheduled one yet, but it’s on my to-do list to do soon!

I had my picture taken with the manager, holding my certificate, that will be on the gym’s website soon.  I am a bit stressed about my picture being on a public site, because I am still 30 pounds from my goal weight, but I need to just get over it and be happy that I did so well in the challenge.  I got a t-shirt that says “60 Day Challenge Finisher”, too.  I put it on as soon as I got home from the gym and strutted about like a celebrity.

Yesterday morning, during a staff meeting, my boss told me she can tell I am back to working out and that I look great.  It was out of the blue, and in front of all of my co-workers, so I was a little startled but happy to hear it.  It’s funny, I had just written about how no one was mentioning my weight loss this time around.

This morning a co-worker said, “You have lost a lot of weight!” then was afraid she had offended me. She apologized and said, “Not that you were really big before,” and I could tell she felt awkward and embarrassed, so I said, “Thank you” so she could stop apologizing.  I was quite big before.  That is just the truth.  I am barely 5’3″, so 211 pounds was a lot, and it showed.

There’s no turning back now!  I don’t want to disappoint anyone by gaining this weight back, especially myself.  I have been waiting a long time to be back at goal weight.  I will not sabotage myself and deny myself that joy again.

That’s It?

I knew my weigh-in on Friday morning would not be as much of a loss, since it was a day early. Still, I expected better than what I got: 1.2 pounds.  Really?  That’s it?  The week I had a 14-mile run?

My boyfriend and I went out of town for the weekend, and we had a great time.  Problem?  I didn’t even touch the hotel’s workout room the entire time we were there.  I packed workout clothes, and I even checked out the fitness room the night we arrived.  I just never used it.  Add onto that the fact that I ate a LOT, and I have my work cut out for me this week to have anything resembling a weight loss!

I have 3 pounds to lose over the next two weeks to reach my mini-goal of hitting 159 or lower before the end of November.  I can’t lose my focus now!

Oh, I have some good news!  I got a phone call as we were on our way out of town from my gym. Remember that weight loss challenge I kept talking about?  I am the top finalist from my gym!  I won a free year membership and a few personal trainer sessions.  I am going to the gym tonight to receive my certificates and to talk with the manager of the gym, who wants a picture with me.  I wish I didn’t feel so bloated and fat and stuffed, but I will work out after the picture since I will already be there, and I’ll get the week started off right.

14 Miles!

I plan one distance run per week in preparation for the half marathon in February.  This week, I wanted to do it on Monday, but it was raining. I’m not so hardcore that I believe in running for hours in wet sneakers, wet clothes that will chafe, and wet hair that will be a tangle of knots by the time I get home.  So I planned it for Tuesday, but then my youngest stepdaughter called and invited us to her patriotic show at her elementary school.  We went to that, and it was wonderful!  So my distance run ended up being last night.

I was so sleepy, I could have curled up on the couch and dozed off when I got home from work.  I made myself change clothes, lace up, and head out the door.  I purposely chose a course with hills, since I have read that the half marathon course has hills (what sadistic bastard thought that up?), and I want to know I can handle hills even when I’m tired.

Well, I certainly had the chance to test that out last night!  The stretch of road that I chose was full of hills.  I definitely felt them.  So did my knees.  But I made it: I ran 14 miles!  That is  the longest I have ever run.  I was nearly hobbling when I got done, and I had to stretch repeatedly afterward, but I survived.

As I was closing in on 14 miles, I was nearly bursting with pride.  I even thought of my blog posts about my chin and about not looking good in that picture, and I thought, who the hell cares? Can most people with perfectly smooth chins run 14 miles?  Can all of the most photogenic people on the planet run 14 miles?  I nearly laughed out loud while I was running at how silly I had been, criticizing how I look when this poor body was capable of so much, and I didn’t even know it.

Last night’s run taught me something else: it’s definitely time for some new running shoes!  My feet were throbbing last night.  I’m finally going to treat myself to a professional fitting at a running store, one of those places that watch you run in the store, test your gait, and select a shoe based on your running form.  It’s going to be far more expensive than the $40 discount shoe store sneakers I’ve been running in, but I bet it will make a huge difference in how I feel during and after a long run.

You know, I wouldn’t mind at all if the running store recommends a little something like this:

I would probably trip trying to run and watch my totally awesome running shoes at the same time 🙂

Yo-Yo

This is not my first weight loss rodeo.  I have yo-yo’d from as low as the 120’s all the way up to 211 pounds.  I reached goal weight a few years ago, gained it back rapidly, and have gotten close again before gaining it all again, several times.

Something I have noticed that is different this time around: no one is mentioning my weight loss. Before, when I had lost 20 pounds or so, my boss and co-workers complimented me on losing weight.  I’ve lost 46 pounds now, and no one has said anything.  Not a peep.

The only person who has complimented my weight loss is my boyfriend.  I think I know why.  No one else expects me to keep it off.  They’ve seen me drop weight before, then *blink*, get fat again seemingly overnight.  So they have seen this before, already think they know what to expect, and are just waiting for me to puff up like a blowfish again.

Except it’s not going to happen.  Not this time.  Sure, I’ve said that before, but I feel different this time.  It is harder this time to lose the weight, so I know that gaining it back will be a huge mistake and taking a risk that I may never lose it again.

I also have a plan for maintenance, which I never bothered to do before.  I am stealing an idea from Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS), a weight loss group I used to belong to.  When someone reaches goal weight, they then have a weight range they must stay in.  If they weigh in over that range, they are on probation and have a limited time to get back into the goal weight range.  So I’m going to set a goal weight range, probably around 132-137, and keep weighing in each week to make sure I am staying in that range.  If I drift above it, I will give myself two weeks, tops, to get back into my goal weight range.

And then there are people like Psycho, who were tickled pink that I gained the weight back, and are smugly waiting for me to gain it back again.  Someone commented to me that in the past, when I have lost weight, Psycho has frantically tried to keep up by losing weight too.  This time she has not. I assume, again, it’s because she is just waiting for me to fall apart and get fat again.

It bothers me that so many people don’t believe I can do this.  But I believe I can.  And I will. It will be fun proving them wrong, and proving to myself what I can do.

Just Not There Yet

Has it really been two weeks since I’ve posted anything here?  Nothing horrible has happened; I just lost track of time.  A lot going on, not enough time to devote to everything.

This past Saturday’s weigh-in was a good one: down 2 more pounds.  This week I need to stay on top of my game!  I have no wiggle room.  I have to weigh in a day early, Friday morning, since my boyfriend and I are going out of town.  This is our first trip together, just the two of us, no kids, in over two years, so I’m looking forward to it.  We hardly ever treat ourselves like this, so I intend to enjoy it to the hilt.

I have now lost 46 pounds, and I am proud of that.  But this past weekend, when we took the kids to the fair, we had our picture taken all together. When I saw the picture, I felt so disappointed.  I’ve lost 46 pounds, and I still look like that?  I felt thin that day.  I felt like I looked great.  Then I saw that picture, saw how fat my arms look, my chipmunk cheeks, and I felt like a huge whale again.

It’s been hard to push past that disappointment.  I rationalized with myself: look, I’ve lost 46 pounds, but I still have nearly 30 pounds to go.  A person who is 30 pounds overweight is not going to look thin in a picture, no matter how much weight she has lost!  So, I ‘ve come a long way, but I still have a long way to go.  I’m not there yet.  It’s not fair to expect myself to look skinny in pictures when I still have quite a bit of weight to lose.

I told myself I was being stupid about that picture.  I need to just keep going, keep working hard, and 30 pounds from now, I will love how I look in pictures.  I’m just not there yet.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started