Category Archives: Weigh In Time

Scale Day

Battle of the Butt, Seven Days of Sanity, Weigh In Time

My first scale non-victory today…I didn’t hit my goal of 349.

I kind of felt like that would be the case after waiting a week and a half for my new walking shoes to come in, immediately followed by a visit from the 7 Dwarfs of the Apocalypse.  I know exactly what I need: another 7 Days of Sanity to kick off the next leg of my Battle of the Butt.

After the 7 Dwarfs of the Apocalypse departed on Monday, I got on the scale and it was hanging faithfully at 354 – so I felt good that all the water gain was gone. And this morning the scale is reading 351.  3 pounds is not a bad haul for 6 days!

I’m confident that I’ll be able to get to 349 by next week now that I’m working out again.  And I’m going to have to push it a little extra hard in April if I’m going to make 339 by the end of the month.  Those are my goals for the next month.  Pretty big goals!

You know what this means, right?  The first leg of 7 Days of Sanity starts TOMORROW!  Who’s with me?

From Sunday, April 1 to Saturday, April 7 I will workout every single day for 30 minutes…and rest on the 8th.  Then I’ll pick it up again…and so on.  I will get there – and I’m sure it’ll be sooner than later.

There is a tiny little voice in my head right now that’s trying to beat me up for not hitting 349…and I just keep telling her to shut the hell up.  If I listen to that voice, I’ll start giving up.  Failure won’t be far behind.  From the moment I started this, my plan of attack has always been to handle self-doubt, set backs, and self-loathing by running full steam ahead towards my goal.  Years of drowning my sorrows in Little Debbies and pizza have shown me that the road behind me leads to nothing but pain and embarrassment.

Feel like a failure or not, it’s up to me.  I’m not a failure.  30 pounds lost in 3 1/2 months is effing bad ass.  🙂  349 will be mine soon enough.

Tomorrow I wake up and start the sanity.  I also think I’m ready to try working out in the mornings again.  For a time, I was too grumpy in the mornings…but now I think it might be good to start my mornings with something extremely positive…so I’m going to try that again.  After all, what the hell do I have to be grumpy about?

 

 

I’ll tell you what:  it felt really good to move some marbles this morning.  Really good.

 

The Power of Positive Thinking

Get on Your Bike & Ride

Battle of the Butt, Seven Days of Sanity, Weigh In Time, , , , , , , ,

I dropped a pound yesterday. I was happy with that, but there was a teensy little voice in my head saying “That’s all? Really? You worked out 6 days more than you did last week and you only lost a pound??” I try to be grateful for what I have, so I just kept telling that voice to shut up. This morning I got on the scale again. Two more pounds…GONE! That’s right, peeps…look at the weight loss ticker over there on the right. 25 pounds are gone for good, never to touch my ass again. Shut UP!!!

Today I rest. Yesterday was the last day of Seven Days of Sanity!!

The Seven Days of Sanity challenge was fun & interesting to me – even though I never made up the second playlist for my iPod that I wanted. (Guess what I’ll be doing today? Playlist!) Still, it felt great to take action against one of my issues and to be motivated to work on it…and to have so many of you join me!

I rolled my ankle in the parking garage at work and had to skip one night – but I still did 6 more work outs than I did the week before, so I call this a solid win. I fully intend to pick this right up again tomorrow – but I did stumble on a little bit of a problem this week. The shoes that I work out in, which I get fitted for at runner’s stores, are almost 3 years old. I really need new shoes. There is no more “cush” to the ones I have. I have foot pain every day right now – and if I try to do another 6 days straight, I’m sure I’m going to end up with an injury I’m all too familiar with: a stress fracture. I’ve had 4 in the last 6 years and I’m not too keen on the idea of getting another one.

 

Even when I was a 125 pound dancer, I had foot problems. Years later, I’ve had countless wraps, braces, injections, casts, and even a surgery. I’m sure my feet hate me even more now that I weigh over 300 pounds. Unfortunately for my feet, I have to use them in order to lose weight. They’re going to have to deal with some of it, but I also have to be a little careful. A stress fracture will land me in a soft cast for 6 – 8 weeks and I won’t be walking at all.

I’m sure many of you can relate to this, but it’s not in our budget for me to get new shoes right this minute. I’ll be able to get them within the next 3 weeks, but until then I’m going to modify my Sanity Plan. 🙂 The new temporary plan is 30 minutes on the treadmill, every other day. When I get my new shoes, I’ll go back to 6 days, rest on 7.

Anyway…25 pounds GONE!! That feels awesome! I’m half way back to the 50 pounds I lost in 2009 right before I pulled a Ross & Rachel on myself and “went on a break”. Ugh. Dumbest mistake I ever made. When I lose that 50 pounds, we are gonna PARTY! I’ll feel like I redeemed myself in a way.

I’m starting to recognize that I handle myself a certain way as I move through each set of tens. (Y’all know I’m breaking the task of losing 219 pounds down into 10 pound increments.) Each pound has a meaning of its own…and I’m starting to see a pattern emerge.

Let’s start at the beginning when I weighed my top weight of 381 pounds. I felt horrible. I was angry with myself and felt like a failure, but I started eating healthy because I knew I had no other choice. Self-disgust was my motivator.

I hit 379. I was no longer in the 380’s and hoped that I never would be again. I wasn’t sure, honestly. I’ve done this many times before – but I really hoped I would never see the 380’s again. Seeing 379 was a big step in the right direction and it gave me momentum to tackle 377, 376, and 375. When I hit 375, I realized I was in the middle of the tens. Things were juuuuust starting to feel like they were dragging when I hit 375. Realizing I was half way through the tens made it bearable and I got to 374, then 373…and I started to smell victory. 🙂 369 was reachable. I was motivated again and made it to 372 and bulldozed my way to 369. Holy crap! 369.

Things would feel like a chore once in a while, but I kept reminding myself that I had no choice. Sure, you can argue that I do have a choice: I can keep working on this or I can slip on some stretchy pants and go for pizza, but the latter is not even a choice for me. I’ve done it a million times, I know what happens when I do it, and I’m just not even interested in playing that game with myself. No choice at all.

I got to 368 and felt….eh. Big deal. I’ve done this. I want more. 367…366…ugh. Then I got to 365. I hit the middle again! I knew I was on the cusp of sliding down the good side, so I kept my chin up. Self-disgust was no longer my motivator, seeing 359 on the scale was. After lecturing my scale and shoving it against the Hot Mess Hubby’s table saw for good measure, I budged the scale all the way to 359. Another set of tens.

Looking back, when I hit 379 I felt only a budding sense of hope that I would never see 381 again. When I hit 359, I started to believe.

Now I’m at 356. I’m just one pound away from the middle of the tens again…and I’m ready to push through the next 2 pounds so that I can feel the thrill of seeing 354 on the scale. 354 is more than halfway through the tens…almost to 352…which is just a hair’s breath from 350. And you know what’s next, right? 349.

 

This is how I make such a tremendous goal manageable. If I look at this as 219 pounds to lose, I know I’ll fail. Instead, I keep it in the back of my head and away from my every thought. It pops up when I get dressed in ugly plus sized clothes in the morning, when I look in the mirror to put my make-up on, and when I walk into any room full of people. It’s always back there lurking, but it doesn’t have to control me. If I let it in too much, it makes me afraid…it makes me discouraged…and I want to quit.

This is not unlike the feeling I had when I was learning to ride a bike. You know that moment that comes when your Dad stops pushing you and you realize he’s let go of the bike and you’re…you’re…you’re riding! You’re riding a bike!! OMG, I’m riding my bike by myself!!!! (CRASH)

I’m afraid of that crash. The big difference is that I’m no longer riding my beloved pink bike with the super cool banana seat & sparkly streamers on the handle bars. I have more control over whether I fall off this bike – however, there is much more at risk than a couple of skinned knees.

When I was a kid, riding my bike was scary when I was learning. Crashes were scary and painful – especially if there wasn’t an obliging patch of grass nearby. But the thrill of the ride put me back up on my bike again. I wanted to be a “big kid”. I wanted to ride to my friends’ houses and explore the neighborhood. I wanted to go. My desire to do all those things was bigger than the fear crashing and scraping my knees and hands. The thrill of riding was my goal and fear wasn’t big enough to stop me.

There is no thrill in weighing 381 pounds. Technically, there’s no thrill in weighing 356 pounds either – but there is for me. For today. Today, I’m thrilled to weigh 356 pounds. Today, I have a little spring in my step and I’m feeling a little bad ass. By tonight, I will be imagining what it will be like to see 354 on the scale…soon, it will be 349.

Imagine where I would be if I was focused on hitting my goal weight of 155 pounds instead. I would already be discouraged – and maybe even already defeated. I’ve worked so hard and I’ve given up so much and I’m only at 356? I need to be at 155…holy crap, this is going to take forever. I can’t do this. I don’t even want to do this. It’s not worth it. Pass me the effing Twinkies.

Nothing makes me more proud to than to tell you I feel nothing like that. Nothing.

This is how I get through it. By the tens. And right there around the *68 – *66 stage, when I feel like throwing my hands up and giving up, I remember where the road behind me leads. It’s not fun back there. I have no interest in repeating history, I only want to ride farther.

I am so happy and grateful to weigh 356 pounds – and even though I have to get up in the morning and look at a fat face in the mirror, put on ugly fat clothes to go to work, and have step onto the treadmill with already sore feet…I don’t care. The pain and embarrassment of being so overweight and the fear of failure on the road ahead are simply not enough to scare me away from my goal.

All I want to do is get on my bike and ride. Pink streamers and all.

 

I See What You Did There…

Battle of the Butt, Milestones, Weigh In Time, , , , , , , ,

I brought Mr. Scale back in the house after letting him stare at that table saw blade all day.  I didn’t realize that Mr. Scale wasn’t being uncooperative, he was just waiting for today.

Today is February 15th.   60 days ago, I gave up sugar, crap, and junk food.  Happy Anniversary to me!!

I got on the scale this morning and saw 359 staring back at me.  🙂

I did it!  I got there!!  (Happy dance!!!!)

I happily grabbed a marble and one of those little pink jewels and moved ’em over to the Pounds Lost jar.  Woohoo!

As I sit here on my couch, unable to wipe the smile off my face, I realize how crucial every decision is – because even though I wasn’t seriously tempted to hit Starbucks yesterday morning, I’ve been in that same position many times and I’ve chosen to throw my hands up in the air and give up.  If I had done that yesterday, I wouldn’t be looking at 359 on the scale this morning.  I would be looking at 361…which would only make me stop for donuts on the way to work “for my co-workers”…and eat 3 in the car before I got there.  That’s how the cycle gets started back up again.

So if I have anything to say today, it’s how much I realize the value of the PAUSE button.  🙂  When you feel yourself start reacting toward food, PAUSE.  It doesn’t mean you can’t have it….it just means you aren’t going to have it right now.

I have to go make my standard healthy breakfast this morning:  3 pieces of turkey bacon, 1 bowl of Special K Vanilla Almond with nonfat milk, and 1 cup fresh grapefruit.  It used to feel like such a drag to eat that when I really wanted to go through Starbucks or McDonald’s…but going on the Imaginary Lap Band journey really made me appreciate the healthy stuff like never before.

 

 

I hope y’all have a wonderful day today…and happy anniversary to me!  🙂

Happy Valentine’s Day, Mr. Scale!

Battle of the Butt, Weigh In Time

I suppose he thought I was bluffing. 🙂

Mr. Scale is having an official time out now. I got on the scale and 360.0 was blinking at me. No weight loss for me today. No 350’s. No marbles to move. No little pink jewel.

I have two choices:

1. Throw my hands up and hit Starbucks for breakfast, followed by pizza for lunch…maybe ice cream for dinner.

2. Trust in the science of it all and know that as long as I keep eating right and exercising, Mr. Scale can’t be an asshole forever. Sooner or later, I win.

Since I’ve chosen option #1 many times in my past and I know where that road leads, what path are you think’in I’m gonna take?

Yep. Trust in the science of it all.

Logic is my friend. I just had my healthy breakfast and I’m going about my day with my head held high. Mr. Scale doesn’t rule over me. (Although I hope he enjoys his day…it can’t be too comfortable being shoved up against that table saw blade like that. Heheheh!)

Whatever you’re doing today, don’t give up on yourselves…you are worth all this trouble!

And so am I! 🙂

Wardrobe Weary On a Road Well Traveled

Battle of the Butt, Weigh In Time, , , , , , , , , , , ,

My closet is a ghost town: a myriad of tops and faded jeans all neatly lined up and abandoned.  There are very few clothes in my closet that I can actually wear right now, thanks to my stubborn insistence that I not buy another piece of clothing until I drop a size.  I live in a world of elastic waistbands and frumpy, wide-width shoes. Fashion is not my friend.  Fashion is a word I can’t even relate to anymore.

I didn’t realize it until this week, but I have been avoiding my closet.  I’ve made a lot of big changes in my life in a relatively short amount of time:  I gave up sugar, diet soda, stopped thinking of healthy eating as a drag, and put an indefinite HOLD status on my plans to have lap band surgery.  It’s only been 6 weeks. These changes are still in their infancy – and, with over 20 years of yo-yo dieting under my belt, I guess it’s only natural for me to shy away from anything that might derail the motivation train.  My resolve is precious to me.  Who hasn’t given up on a “diet” within the first days and weeks of starting it?  I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve thrown my hands up and reached for the chips.  My resolve is something that must be protected and gently nurtured.  This is why I’ve been avoiding my closet and all those clothes I can’t wear.

My closet makes me feel like a failure – and yet I choose to stubbornly cling to a hundred hangers worth of memories.  I decided to stop avoiding it this week.  Time to grab the bull by the horns.  Just two steps in and I was surrounded by a half dozen different sizes.  All of them were judging me.

As I organized and sorted, my hands flipped past t-shirts and non-tunics galore.  I remembered the times I wore these clothes – times when the number on the scale was not nearly as shameful as it is now.  I weighed a lot less then, but I was never able to let myself be happy with where I was.  I may have been a lot smaller, but I remember I always felt just as huge as the day I hit my highest weight.

Then I saw it: the first leather jacket I ever bought myself.  It’s a size 22 – which is still plus sized, but 10 sizes smaller than where I am today.  I can’t part with it.  Every time I see it, I’m reminded of the first time I saw it in the store.  I had lost 75 pounds, but I was on the small end of a size 24 and wasn’t sure it would fit me.  I’ll never forget the triumphant feel of slipping that jacket on.  Perfect fit.

I stood in my closet, smiling at the memory of it, but the smile faded within just a few seconds.  I know all too well what happened next and my moment of joy was replaced with shame & disappointment.  Just a few months later, I started another downward spiral and I gave up on myself.  Again.

Having never been able to give myself credit for the accomplishment of losing 75 pounds, I was still berating myself for being 295 pounds (my top weight at the time) – even though I hadn’t weighed that much in months.  I call that kind of negative, automatic thinking my “auto-pilot”.  I didn’t even know I was doing it until my attitude hit the skids.  I tried to pick myself up with a pep talk.  “Hey!  I do NOT weigh 295 pounds!  I’m kicking ass!!”  I tried to believe in myself, but I never felt it in my heart.  It made me vulnerable in ways I couldn’t see.

While at my most vulnerable, I was unprepared for the jerk parade that ensued when I started dating again.  It only took a couple douche bags to break me down.  It wasn’t long before I started finding excuse after excuse not to work out.  Fast food was suddenly more convenient.  Ice cream was back in the freezer.  That bitch Little Debbie was back in my life.  It was easier to curl up on the couch with a plate full of pizza rolls and let the world outside go by than it was for me to look at what went wrong and try again.  By the time I stepped on the scale again, I was 299 pounds.  All the way back up to my top weight with 4 pounds extra.  Nice job.

The leather jacket in my closet is a symbol of the good times on the road to weight loss and the pitfalls that await me if I make the same mistakes.  In some ways, it might be better if I just gave it to charity.  I can’t.  Not until I can wear it again.  When I slip that jacket on my shoulders again and I feel in my heart that I am a Hot Mess Bad Ass, then I can let it go.  That’s the way it is with all the clothes in my ghost town closet.  There is peace to be made.  Retribution.

It’s going to be difficult for a while.  Auto-pilot is hard to fight when I have no physical reminder that I’ve lost weight.  An obese person can’t see or feel a loss of 5, 10, or even 20 pounds.  It doesn’t make much of a dent.  Pants don’t feel looser when they have elastic waists.  It makes it a lot harder to stay positive when you’re able to wear the same pair of pants through pounds and pounds of weight loss.  I don’t expect to be able to wear the next size down for at least another 10 or 15 pounds. The scale and the tape measure are my only real tools for measuring my success – at least for a while.

Just a few days ago, I caught myself on auto-pilot again.  I sat down in my chair at work and thought to myself “I can’t believe I weigh 381 pounds…”

Here I go again, right?  I don’t weigh 381 pounds.  I weigh 361 pounds.

That’s right, peeps:  I’ve lost more marbles since my last post!  I’ve lost 20 pounds since December 15th, 2011.  Why do I have such a problem acknowledging my own success?

That’s why I left myself this note on my monitor at work the other day:

 

 

Of course, now I’m going to have to put a new note up there:  361.  What a horrible inconvenience to have to keep rewriting these notes, right?  🙂

I was so excited to see 361 blinking back at me from the scale this morning.  I had to weigh myself three times before I would believe it, finally stepping back and muttering “shut UP!”  My groggy hubby, still in bed, rolled over and said “Pretty sure you’re not supposed to tell the scale to shut up, babe…”   Goober.

I’m two pounds away from the 350’s – which means I have two pounds more to lose before one of those little pink jewels go PLINK in the “Pounds Lost” jar.  It looks like I’m going to hit my next mini goal:  359 by Valentine’s day.

What’s my goal after that?  354.  Why?  Because I will no longer be able to say I have to lose over 200 pounds.  🙂  At 354 pounds, I will have 199 pounds more to lose.

Seems insurmountable, doesn’t it?  199 more pounds.  My God.  I’m here to tell ya:  I’m gonna do it.  I will kick every single pound squarely in the ass and send it packing.  Ten pounds at a time, they’re dust.  For me, success is no longer just hitting my goal weight.  Success is changing my life and earning my way.

So here I am:  a 361 pound success.  Proud and grateful.