Round

That’s not me, and those aren’t my rings, but it’s starting to be a possibility.

I’ve always had fat hands, fat fingers.  I’ve blogged about it, because the fat of my fingers was problematic as I gained wait.  Most of my life I avoided wearing rings.

Then I met my husband. Way before we got engaged he gave me these rings :

They are very pretty.  They were also given when I weighed about 185, and so they’ve been out of circulation for a few years.  The pink is my favorite but the stone is loose & I don’t wear it because it needs to be repaired.   And when I was losing weight from my mid 180’s setpoint, as I got to 175 the rings were all too big & I was considering having them resized down.  Then came the Big Years & these rings were a distant memory.

Of course, I also have an engagement ring & wedding band.  Those were sized for a 195 pound me, and as I went up in weight the fat kind of settled above the rings — making taking them off impossible.  I’ve been worried at every medical procedure that they’d force me to get them off (somehow) & then I’d not be able to get them back on.  This past surgery in November is the first time I wasn’t worried about that — I slipped them off & gave them to my husband & put them back on 24 hours later, no sweat.

Last summer my husband gave me another 2 rings.  I had one sized for my middle finger, the other for the ring finger of my right hand.  I weighed 200 at the time & chose a size ring that was tight but wearable.  They’re now wearable, but not tight. 

There are so many ways to see progress even if the scale seems stuck!

Well, for two weeks now my weight is not moving down.  My food hasn’t really changed, I just think my body is doing what it often does after a decent drop a few weeks in a row — hanging on to every pound for dear life.

In fact, my weight has been up several pounds most days, and seems to be coming down slowly from there - official weigh in today has me up one from the past few weeks, but it’s actually down a few pounds from some of the weights I’ve seen in the past week.

But I’m feeling good, eating well, exercising regularly & just generally holding the course.

I think plateaus are a test of patience - who is more stubborn, you on your plan vs the weight stuck on your body?  I’m going to win this one because I’m holding the line & just waiting it out.

Went through a few of the boxes of too-small clothes in my closet this weekend and found several items to add into rotation, including a pair of jeans that is skipping the “quite snug” stage & just debuting as “normal fitting”.

This week is another travel week, will implement that same eating patterns as my last trip to Munich, plus the exercise videos on my iPhone again (at least yoga if I don’t find the courage to try the cardio workouts).  I have a gym bag in my office in Munich that I’ll take with me to the hotel Tuesday so I cut the excuses down again on the exercise front.

Friday & the weekend I’ll hit the gym hard again, as I’m enjoying seeing the progress I’m making lately (and it might help make the scale move a bit too).

How do you get yourself to stick it out through a plateau?

Gosh, I am so glad I started losing weight in 2009.  I feel huge these days and I’d be feeling even worse if I had let my weight stay up (or more likely, pile up even further).

As I’m losing weight, some clothes I’ve worn constantly for the past few years are starting to feel too baggy.  Baggy had a distinct advatage before, but now makes me feel even bigger.

Winter coats are the worst.  I have a padded long black down-filled one for really cold weather — and it’s warm and wonderful & when it’s that cold I could care less what it looks like.  But for other winter coats I’ve been looking kind of shleppy for the past few years.  I was starting to think about adding “winter coat” to my holiday wish list this year, when it occured to me that I had bought a coat my first winter in Paris, and now that I’m losing weight it might even fit again.

As I dug through the dark reaches of my closet I found TWO winter coats — one I had completely forgotten about (and NEVER worn) and the one I’d had in mind.  The never worn one is a size 12, and it buttons but doesn’t look good - need to lose another size for it to be workable - but it was a nice find (and a beautiful coat!).  The one that I had in mind, however, DOES FIT, and it is perfect for this late Fall weather.  It’s also extremely chic & Parisian looking - probably the most fashionable coat I’ve ever owned, and while it won’t look good with 3 heavy sweaters underneath, it looks just fine with one slim one (and honestly the coat isn’t very warm so if I need more than one sweater I need a different coat anyway).

How’s that for a NSV (non-scale victory)?!?!

I’m not trying to be a RockStar with my weight loss nor my exercise.

I don’t want to run a marathon, and I the idea of a “30 pounds in 30 days” challenge leaves me cold.

I want to live my life.  Enjoy it even.  And lose some weight.  Permanently.
I guess the weight loss media stuff out there is full of pressure-messages right now because either they’re selling something (most) or aware that the New Year’s resolution crowd is starting to falter.

I saw this quote today in a weight loss newsletter :

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high
and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”
- Michelangelo

Really?  For weight loss?  Seriously do you think most of us will reach that dreamed-for weight of 110 pounds or whatever it is?  If you just get out of whichever BMI category you’re in, isn’t that TERRIFIC?

I’ve always been more successful focusing on just a few pounds, and then a few more.  Taking the elephant a bite at a time, as they say.  You lose weight one SSSLLLLOOOWWW pound at a time (unfortunately, we often gain them in bunches & fast, but we almost never lose them that way).

Either way, all that “reach for the stars” stuff doesn’t speak to me at all.

I want to lose weight without losing my mind.

Yes, my weight is important to me, but frankly, so are a lot of other things, and a lot of the other things are even more important.

Am I alone in feeling this way?

“PROGRESS, not Perfection” has been my signature line for many years and what I call my Motto, at least in the domain of my weight, although honestly I wonder if it’s not my motto for Life period.

I recently was commenting to Shana who I consider to be one of my big-time inspirations.  I mean the woman’s lost a lot of weight, looks great, blogs fabulously & is one of the most consistent exercisers I’ve followed.   I’ve watched Shana struggle with the same 10 pounds or so for a year - she always seems to want to lose more, and I’m sure one day she will, but she hasn’t yet found the right mix to get her to the next level.   Like most of us, Shana found a few more pounds during the holidays, and her weight has been up about 5-7 pounds above where she usually hangs out.  Like many people, she’s had a hard time gettting back on track after being off in the food free-for-all for a while.  And like most of us blogging here, she KNOWS what to do - but hasn’t managed it, and I suspect it’s that old nemesis Perfectionism coming in again.

Ah, Perfectionism, I know you well, and I am a WAR with you.

Shana wrote about her eating one day last week.  She had what I think any of us would see as a really great dieting day.  Breakfast : On plan.  Lunch : On plan.  Dinner : On plan.  Shana snacked while making dinner.  I think a lot of us do that, especially if we had skipped a planned midafternoon snack to save on calories or because of poor planning.  Shana carefully measured and counted her snack.  She had exactly one serving (13 chips she reported) of potato chips, and a couple of tablespoons of dip.   How many of you would have been able to do that?  Carefully measure, portion control, not go back and eat the whole bag?

But was Shana proud of her control & self restraint?  No.  She was apologizing for having the chips & dip at all.  Because it wasn’t “Perfect”.

It was her first day really being in control of her eating in several weeks, but because it wasn’t “Perfect” she saw it as something negative, not the HUGE VICTORY it was.

Shana had made ENORMOUS PROGRESS in her eating that day — not just the good meals all day, but also the careful counting of a snack.

It can be frighteningly difficult to live by “PROGRESS, not Perfection” for ourselves, but somehow we’re all kinder and gentler with others.    I build my ability to live up to my motto by seeing the pattern in others, and trying to nudge them back to a more forgiving & realistic world.

Please, please, please : when you see others expecting Perfection of themselves, please call them out on it & ask them to see the PROGRESS they have made.

It’s a snowy day in Paris — the first I remember seeing in December, in fact.  We don’t usually get much snow but there’s probably about an inch out there now, and the temp is warmer than it has been in days.  I’ve been wearing my big bulky long down coat this week - and couldn’t care less about the fact that everyone looks 30 pounds heavier in such apparel, because the truth of it is that it’s 1) warm and 2) fitting.  Last year I couldn’t even wear it, and it’s really a nice coat & I’m really not very vain, so I wear it happily.

I’ve been enjoying being back to exercise this week.  Other than Monday where I had a pretty hectic day, I’ve made it to the gym each day (twice in mornings!) and am enjoying it, seeing sweat, and still being careful not to overdo it.  No pain at all, which is great & what I’m going for.

I’ve also decided to keep on weekly weigh ins on Mondays but skip days of hopping on the scale in between - in just a few days I’ve felt a lot more relaxed about it, which I think means that taking a break from losing right now (til Jan 1) is the right thing for me.  My husband’s birthday is Friday, we have holdiay meals w family on Sat & Sunday, leave for my in-laws for x-mas on Weds, have a romantic weekend at a hotel/restaurant for the following weekend.   I don’t plan to go nuts, but I do plan a small peice of cake (I havent made this cake in 6 years) and I’m guessing I’ll have something nice during the romantic weekend.  And I’ll probably have to suck it up and eat something not completely low carb to keep from driving my in-laws crazy over 4 days there…  I can only pack so many nuts!

My mindset & my weight have been holding steady this week.  That’s pretty good & I’ll count it as a victory.  I’ve lost weight steadily every week for quite a while now, so a flat week doesn’t freak me out, I actually think it’s a bit more normal.

I also headed back to exercise last week - more seriously than the slow walks I’d been doing after surgery, I acutally went to the gym 3 times & 2 long walks last week, and was glad to see my appetite return along with the energy expenditure.  I’ve had very little appetite since the surgery & was starting to wonder about it — since that’s not very normal for me, and there were days when my calorie intake was very low because of it.  Luckily, it looks like it was just a phase, and I am generally feeling more ‘me’.  I was careful not to overdo it (except for Friday, when I did overdo it) & was really happy that the gym sessions didn’t result in any pain or other ill effects.

This weekend we went to visit my in-laws in Brittany.  Whenever we go there we always visit a special creperie which has the BEST crepes I’ve ever had.  I knew we’d go there this trip again, and I was debating what I would do about my diet on such a visit.  Do I try to find a way to eat low carb & skip the crepe? Or do I just go with the flow and enjoy it?  Finally, I decided to go with the latter solution, as we only visit there once a year or so, and those crepes are totally worth it.  They’re actually not horrible from a carb standpoint - the crepe batter is made with whole grain buckwheat, and they have tons of fat in them (butter for the griddle, cheese, egg, etc).  It’s higher carb than my regular fare, but not like I’m diving into a cake of flour and sugar, so I just let myself enjoy it & then returned to regular eating (almost — I did also dip my hand into the chocolates a few times that evening…).  But yesterday was back on track & today will be too.  Life is too short to turn down everything.

This week the scale has been dancing around a lot — and higher than usual, which is a bit weird.  I figure some is from the intensified exercise, and other must just be readjusting to a new normal.  At the same time the scale was up a few pounds (back today to the same weight as last week), my clothes felt looser again.  I finally decided to retire the jeans that have seen me through since March.  I confess they were pretty tight in March, but now have a saggy butt & saggy thighs & I have jeans in about 6 sizes in the depths of my closet, so I went digging.  I was surprised that there were pairs of jeans that I need to skip over — they would have worked 10 pounds ago but are already too big.

I was inspired enought to go through my professional clothes this morning — since I start back to work on Wednesday.  I found 2 suits I bought in February that were tight then that are too big now & still have the labels on them.  I got rid of 8 pair of pants & a few jackets, and have room (and encouragement) enough to try on some of the suits that I had banished to an upstairs closet 2 years ago when I realized they were just making me feel bad every time I got dressed — some of them probably fit again now! It’s like going shopping without spending anything or dealing with the crowds.

I’ve gone through my sweaters too, and even put a few items that are tight into a box to open again in 10 or so pounds.  I’m loving the feeling of discovering new(ish) items so I figured they were better off waiting for me to re-discover them instead of taking up space in my mind & closet right now.

That scale was beaten into submission these past few days. Seriously, I beat that scale senseless this week.

Finally the time of month bloating passed — it was not normal timing nor normal bloating (which of course makes sense, since I was doing IVF and they pumped me full of hormones). Finally late last week I started seeing 195-ish numbers and today the I got lucky and saw 194.

I suspect next week will be flat, but still I’m taking the 194, even if it is a one-day sneak preview. Puts me in the ’rounds to 190′ category, right?

I’m pretty happy that I’m losing again, and back to the numbers I saw in Denver.  I know the next few weeks with surgery weight loss won’t be on the top of my mind, but it’s nice to go into the medically-required slowdown knowing that I’ve been on a good path for a while, and that it’s definitely working.  Also all the mental beating-myself-up about my weight and body (which are always exacerbated when I’m in a hospital dependent on others) will be somewhat helped by the fact that in the past few months I’ve been quite successful in getting some of the weight off.

I was reading a bunch of posts this morning and it seems like there is a blogger’s virus of Bleh going around.  A lot of people seem stalled, or de-motivated, or somehow off track.

Of course there are a few machines that just keep on keeping on, and of course that’s impressive.

For the rest of us, it’s worth recognizing where we are to see if there is a way to take a pause, regroup, and then firmly re-commit.  It’s just over a month until the Holiday craziness starts with Thanksgiving, and we all know that the 6 weeks or so after Thanksgiving is a time when it’s incredibly easy to gain 10, 15, 20 or more pounds without even realizing it.  So the best treatment is prevention, and that’s why a Fall malaise right now is so dangerous.

I’m feeling pretty bleh myself, but my reasons are different.  I’m nervous about the hysterectomy I’m having in 3 weeks for endometrial cancer (well, right now we think it’s pre-cancer).  I’m worried they’ll find something bad, but of course intellectually I know that even that is treatable, survivable, but I’m still scared.  I’m scared of recovery.  I’m scared of being in the hospital.  I’m scared of feeling awful about myself being so overweight when I try to get out of bed and walk and all the humiliations of pre and post surgery (pubic shaving, catheters, bedpans, etc etc).  Both my sister & my mom will be here and somehow that’s making me more nervous and less confident.  Even though I know it will be a help to my husband (which is more important). 

So I need to focus on being positive and staying on track to feel as good as I can about myself going into the surgery, and we all need to focus on getting back on track solidly before the holidays come (no Thanksgiving in France, and this year being just a few weeks out of surgery I’m not doing Thanksgiving in Paris for friends).  

As regular readers might remember, my previous “stable” weight was around 195 for several years before I ballooned up to around 220 about 2 years ago.  I have TONS of clothes that fit at 195, and even more at 180 (where I was when I moved to France 6 years ago).  For a long time I kept my off season clothes as a jumbled mess of off-season PLUS not-fitting.

Changing seasons was always depressing, because I’d find these smaller clothes I liked mixed in, but no hope to wear them.

Finally this Spring when I changed out the Winter for the Summer I did a complete overhaul and actually made THREE types of boxes.  Some are labeled “Season”, some are “19.5″ and some are “1.8″.  My husband doesn’t need to be all up in my business about the scale or my sizes, but he does need to put the boxes up and down for me (so 19.5 is my vaguely-coded 195 and the 1.8 corresponds to 180).  Of course, the code is actually pretty good since my husband is French and therefore neither Pounds nor American Sizes mean anything to him - if it was in kilos or French sizes he’d catch on, but for him it’s actually meaningless.  I prefer it that way.

This was the first season I’ve used the new system, and it was a BREEZE.  Not only easier to change clothes (because fewer boxes to go through) but also none of the beating-myself-up bits about not fitting into something).

I finally accepted my weigh in this week at 197.  The scale has actually been touching on 195 in the past few weeks - inconsistently but it’s coming … The big thing is that I am having a hysterectomy in a few weeks, and I expect to have big-time belly bloat for several weeks after that — and who knows what my weight will do for the several weeks of recovery.  So I decided that celebrating getting to 195 will have to wait until I’m back at 195 AFTER the surgery (even if I manage to touch it briefly in the next week or two again).  Those 3 boxes of 19.5 will have to wait for me. But when I get in them, I will be CELEBRATING!

In the meantime, as usual, I’m all giddy about finding my off-season clothes again, having forgotten about a few items that I really like.  I’m better about retiring things now at the end of a season, because I’m always glad to see it around again a few months later, and it keeps the garments in better shape to not be worn 12 months a year.