Back on WW

So a million years later, I’m finally falling back into my groove.  Yes, this is happening the week before Christmas.  Yes, that leaves me with the genuine concern that Christmas will simply dislodge me from that groove all over again next week.  But I’m going to do my best to fight that.  Right now, I’m just riding the high.  The fiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally in the 220s high.  Weighed in at 229.4 this morning.  I’ve re-joined WW meetings because I wanted to find out about the new program (I found out it’s awesome)!  I’m still adjusting though, meetings here are a little different.  The leaders are a little…uh… country.  But I can’t knock it because it’s working right now

Well I survived my 6 weeks as a long term sub and I’ve made the move to Nashville. My weight loss didn’t fair so well through it all and I’m up 5 lbs. But now I’m settling, still job hunting, but getting back on track with my weight loss. I haven’t been doing 100%, but I’m tracking and cooking some.

I’ve been a little thrown in that I’m having to quit WW meetings unexpectedly. I went to my first meeting up here in Nashville only to find that my monthly membership is not accepted here. The memberships offered here are more expensive and you get less for your money (no online tools and can’t go to other meetings). So I’m just going to be doing WW on my own now (but with support from 3FC of course). My last monthly pass expires July 17th, and I’ll be back in Atlanta the 10th and 17th, so I’ll get in two more meetings with my old group. I really want to get back to 55 lbs lost before the 17th. I didn’t celebrate the 55lbs the first time because I wasn’t at my normal meetings and wanted to wait and celebrate with my group (only to gain the weight back). So hopefully I’ll get to celebrate my second reaching of 55lbs lost with my group before I’m done. I’m going to buy some star stickers so I can keep up my bookmark on my own. It’s a good visual of how much I’ve lost and I look forward to my stupid little stickers. I think keeping that up will help me deal with losing my meetings.

Okay, I’m being a little rambly. I’ll check back in with how the next couple weeks go.

291/239/155

Well ever since I reached the 50 lbs lost point I’ve been yo-yoing like CRAZY! I’ll do well for a couple weeks, and then completely undo it over the next week or so. Then I re-commit and do well again…for like a week or so. This past week I did well, but more so out of stress than hard work. I started my long term sub position this week, which is about 10x the responsibility and 20x the stress of a day to day sub job, for a whopping $10 more per day. I didn’t really get any exercise in because I was so exhausted every day. But I also didn’t eat that much. This has to be the first time in my life that I’ve reacted to stress by NOT eating. Not gonna lie, it’s kinda cool. Anyhow, it gave me a nice 3.4 lbs loss on the scale (that’s RE-losing the 3 lbs I gained over the previous two weeks and 0.4 NEW lbs lost for a total of -53.4). Next week I’m really going to try to incorporate exercise in my new schedule. I have a lot going on in the coming weeks: this job until May 21, graduation & birthday parties, meeting my sister’s boyfriend’s family, apartment/roommate hunting and, at the end of May, moving to Nashville. I really don’t want to let all of that kill my weight loss. I will do my best to keep pushing through. I REALLY want to be in the 2-teens before the end of summer. Well, have a great week/month/however long it takes me to update again!

291/236/155

Another strong start. I finally reached 50 pounds lost, and I’ve been kinda off plan since. Really trying to pull myself back together right now. ugh

I started this month so strong, only to crash and burn. I lost back the holiday weight rather quickly and was feeling good. But then I did my usual post-success gain. It’s a long-standing habit of mine to get too confident after a large loss and then slack off. So I gained back 1.2 lbs. I was then ready to hop right back on track when I injured my knee on the leg press. I’ve been battling that for the last week and a half now. I’m just so bummed because I’d been doing well on C25K and was getting really excited about running and now I can’t. I know I should be on the recumbent bike or something getting some kind of exercise but it’s soooooo boring. Without running I feel so fat and lazy, and for whatever reason I can’t seem to motivate myself to do any other kind of exercise. And of course there is the impulse to eat my feelings, which I’ve been fighting with limited success. I’m just in a slump. I really need to turn things around so I can feel a little confidence again.

291/241.6/155

A while back my sister’s boss had everyone at their work create a list of 101 dream life goals, and I was inspired to create my own. The goals don’t all have to be realistic; they’re the things you would do if you could do anything. It’s surprisingly difficult to come up with so many items and it has taken me a while. I’ve really enjoyed keeping this list, because whenever I see or hear of something and think, “that would be so cool to do,” I jot it down. Otherwise it would end up on what is surely a long list of forgotten ideas.

1- Move out of state

2- Go back to Aus

3- Reach a healthy weight

4- Go rock climbing

5- Learn to fly

6- Learn a foreign language

7- Get an MA Ceramics (preferably from ASU)

8- Own a pottery studio

9- Complete a triathlon

10- Get married before 30

11- Climb a volcano

12- become a proficient whitewater kayaker

13- Go to Egypt

14- Learn to surf

15- Swim with stingrays

16- Dive in a shark cage in South Africa

17- Move back to Brisbane

18- Hang out with Alex (my best friend when I studied abroad) again

19- Out-run Mandy (my sister, who’s quite fast)

20- Raft the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon

21- Hike in the Grand Canyon

22- Keep a consistently clean apartment

23- Wear clothes from Anthropologie

24- Write a published travel journal

25- Go to India

26- Brazil

27- Greece

28- Japan

29- Great Wall of China

30- New Zealand

31- Greet the New Year in the eastern-most time zone

32- Camp at Uluru

33- Hike the AT

34- Snowboard in Colorado

35- Have a close platonic relationship with a guy

36- Be comfortable in a bikini

37- Get published in Ceramics Monthly

38- Teach Ceramics at a University

39- Visit Yellowstone NP

40- Camp in Oregon

41- Go to a concert in Seattle

42- Visit Annie (another roommate from my time abroad) in Canada

43- Celebrate Carnival in Trinidad/Tobago

44- Save a life (literally or figuratively)

45- Stop craving fast food

46- Live a more eco-friendly lifestyle

47- Workout every day

48- Live on a river

49- Learn to love veggies

50- Take west-coast road trip

51- See the Northern Lights

52- Stop procrastinating

53- Play paintball

54- Grow all of the dye out of my hair

55- Play guitar well

56- Land a speaking role in a feature film or TV show

57- Learn basic car mechanics

58- Learn/maintain ability to sail

59- See Modest Mouse (sober)

60- See Muse

61- Go to Coachella

62- Go to Telluride Mountain Film Festival

63- Learn to cook well

64- Pass Geography GACE (or other state equivalent)

65- Play kayak polo

66- Participate in obscure small town festival

67- Hot air balloon (New Mexico or Arizona)

68- Bi-plane ride

69- Get a German Shepherd

70- Get a Border Collie

71- See Victoria Falls

72- Go spelunking

73- Feed a Tiger or Lion cub

74- Go river-boarding in Yosemite

75- Raft the Zambezi

76- Go to NCECA

77- Spend St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland

78- Run a Warrior Dash www.wariordash.com

79-

So, coming up on Christmas I has a sneaking suspicion that if I tried to stay on track that week I would end up feeling deprived and suffer the deadly backlash which has sent completely off program many a time before. I then made the decision to take the week off, have myself a grand ol’ time eating what I wanted for the week (a VERY event filled week with a bachelorette party, wedding, graduation/holiday dinner, birthday dinner, and of course Christmas itself). Holy horrible idea Batman! I was thinking I’d gain like 6 pounds, which is a lot, but whatever, move on from it. But when I got home and weighed I was up 12 pounds!!!!! I read an article recently that said the average healthy weight person gains 1 pound over the holidays, and the average overweight/obese person gains 5 lbs. I gained over twice what the average obese person gains! wtf? Ugh. Okay I had to bitch about it, and now I’m moving on.

So I’ve lost a little bit of the weight already; today I’m up 9.2 lbs from before the holiday. It’s better than 12. And I’ve started thinking about what I want to do next. My goal for this year (I will not call it a resolution; I feel resolutions are meant to be broken) is to lose at least 4 pounds a month on average. I lost an average of 3.18 per month in 2009 (but I wasn’t really trying in February [+0.6] or March [No weigh-in]). So my first plan of action is to make my C25K a habit. It’s been something I’ve been kind of casually doing. So this month I’m challenging myself to complete C25K 3 days a week every week. I will do other workouts as well, but C25K is my minimum. Hope you all had a good holiday. I’ll post again in February, if not sooner.

oh, and FYI- I was down to 241 lbs at the weigh-in before Christmas

291/250.2/155

I’m keeping this short, but the weight loss has been slow and steady. I have one more weigh-in before Christmas, that will be on Thursday. I’m really hoping to be under 245 by then. Next week is going to be rough. I will be attending a bachelorette party, a wedding, a holiday dinner party, my sisters birthday dinner, and of course there’s Christmas day. So we’ll see how I survive. I’d like to enjoy myself some, but I can’t afford to go overboard. There are just too many events and if I indulge in them all I could gain 10 pounds easy! I’m still running. I’ve just switched from making up my own intervals to the C25K program, I’m on week 3. That’s it for now. Happy Holidays ladies and gents!

291/246/155

I was just writing in a thread about why some people’s “take action” weight is lower than others. I think for me, my take action weight is higher because I’ve been obese for as long as I can recall. I don’t know what it’s like to be thin and it’s easy to believe I never will. This got me thinking about the mind set that’s kept me fat and the experiences that made me change. I did not have a single event that sent me back on WW. It was a culmination of events. I decided I should write them down to remind me why I’m doing this and where I’ve been, so I can remember never to let it happen again.

-At the end of my elementary placement during student teaching I had to watch a video of myself teaching and write a reflection on what needed improvement and what I did well. I could hardly focus on what I was teaching because all I could think was “no way I’m that big.” Forget the “camera adds 10 pounds,” this one had surely added 100! I never saw myself as being THAT big. I mean I was stop and stare big. It was such a shock, and I still don’t really want to believe it.

- I injured my back. It didn’t even occur to me that my own body was so heavy that I needed to use proper lifting technique to pick up a 5 pound stool!

-I went to Nashville with my parents to visit my sister. One day we decided to walk to the dog park, less than a mile away. Not only was my 61 year old Dad comfortably walking MUCH faster than me, but my knees were killing me even at that slow pace.

-I could no longer preform a feet first surface dive, a standard life guarding skill.

-I reached 291 pounds. Waaaay too close to 300 for my comfort (and I went so long without weighing myself, I could have actually hit 300 at some point and not known it).

-I felt so ugly all the time, that I didn’t even want to fall in love anymore.

-I joined a biggest loser challenge at my gym and got to work out with a trainer. I didn’t lose any weight because I was eating so much. Shortly after the end of that challenge I was doing some stretches after a workout and read and article on the wall about Binge Eating Disorder and realized that was me. That was the first time I admitted to myself how out of control my eating had been.

-My sister and I were discussing my weight loss and she told me, “You’re my only sister and I want you to be around.” You shouldn’t have to worry about your sibling’s mortality at this age, we’re only in our 20s.

-I exceeded the weight limit for my kayak, and most other small watercraft.

-My friends started saying “uh-huh” in that “yeah, right” tone when I talked about losing weight. Frankly, I’d been all talk and no show for quite some time.

-My sister ran her first half-marathon, and I honestly believed I’d never be capable of doing that.

I’ve still got a lot of demons and a long way to go. But I have no intentions of giving up. I want to know what it feels like to reach a healthy weight. I want to adopt that low “take action” weight. I want to prove that I was wrong every time I said it will never happen, that being skinny will just be a fantasy for me. I want to be an athlete. I’ve grown to love running, but it stills hurts me some and I can’t go very far. I’m removing 90 more pounds so that I may run freely, without pain. That’s my most motivating mental image at this point.

So I gained 2 lbs, then lost them back. Leaving me at 250, again. I was really feeling like I’d never hit the 240s. I mean, c’mon, how long can it take to lose a few pounds? … A really long time when you keep gaining them back every few weeks. But I finally got on it this week and reached 248.2! I rewarded myself with a couple new tops. Then I tried on the old size 20 jeans from the SpaceBags in my storage closet, and they fit. Double-reward! I have like 8 pairs of jeans from when I was a size 20 before, so fitting into them again is like Christmas come early. Trying to keep it going. Especially going into the holidays. I know if I’m doing well and practicing good habits now, it will be easier to make the right decisions on Thanksgiving and beyond. I won’t want to sabotage all my hard work! I’ll try to actually update next week. Have a good week ladies!

291/248.2/155