Stuck

This may end up being a rant or sounding whiny, so apologies all around ahead of time.

I've had the worry, pretty much since I started back in August, that I would lose a certain amount of weight and then just stop. Not that I would stop eating healthily or exercising, but that my body would just refuse to lose any more weight.

Maybe it's similar to other feelings of "I'm never actually going to be able to do/achieve ___". Like when you're pregnant with your first child and you just CANNOT fathom that you'll be able to give birth. Or in your sophomore year of college, and that degree just seems so.far.away.

Over the past few years I've yo-yo'ed between the 260s and maybe the 230s. Not until last summer did I "yo" way up to 295.  So I think I could envision myself getting down to 240/230, maybe even the 220s, but I can't picture anything lower than that right now. And the way the scale is treating me, I'm scared it's coming true.

Here's what the last few weeks' weigh-ins look like:

02/26/12: 243.2
03/04/12: 241.0
03/11/12: (no entry, likely because I stayed the same or gained like .4 lbs)
03/18/12: 238.6
03/25/12: 240.4

One month to lose 2.8 lbs!!! WTF? I'm all for slow and steady. I'm not trying to lose 6 lbs a week. 1-2 a week is what I'm aiming for. But what is THIS bullshit?

And I'm not "cheating" or rationalizing poor food choices, either.  Here are my calories totals for last week:

1258
1305
1148
1031
1322
1290

If anything, my calories are a tad LOW. This is pretty much how my calorie totals have looked for the past month. A few days in the 1300s, mostly 1200s, and a few days where I've either unintentionally missed a meal (work meeting that goes through lunch) or just had some really low cal meals (tilapia and steamed veggies) and ended up in the 1000s or 1100s.

I count everything. I'm not "forgetting" to count the sodas or alcohol or bites of this or that. I drink primarily water (or no calorie vitamin waters, etc.). I work out 2-3 times a week. I eat a ton of veggies, lean proteins, some grains, and fresh fruit.

I'm becoming convinced that my body just will not lose much more weight.

Perhaps the obvious solution is to increase my daily calories. Easier said than done. I've flirted with disordered eating in the past. So to see my daily total reach into the 1400s (or higher) right now when my weight is stagnating or even creeping upward just sends me into a panic.

I've got one more weigh-in, this Saturday, before I won't be weighing in for a few weeks. I've got a long overdue vacation all next week, and I'd told myself long ago that this week won't count. There are several "special" meals lined up for which I can eat whatever I choose.

 "whatever I choose"

The other meals during the week will be healthy, as my meals have been for the last 7 months. I will not forbid myself from enjoying life like a "normal" person, and I will not hold it against myself. Ergo, no weigh-in the weekend I return. Perhaps the following week, but we shall see.

In the meantime, I'm going to try to up my calories as far as I can manage to (yesterday was 1446, today will be 1361) up to 1450, and add two power walks in each week to my 2 aerobics classes.  Hopefully, this week will at least see me back into the upper 230s, and post vacation I will have stayed the same.

Lord help me fight the urge to check calorie content at restaurants on my vacation. As someone near and dear to me would sing, "You realllllyyy, don't waaaaannnnt to-oooo knooooooow."

On not compulsively overeating

Like many others striving to get in shape, I've been a voracious reader of weight loss blogs/books/memoirs. I'm no longer looking for "How did you do it? What was your secret/trick/magic bullet?"  Now I'm just reading to feel camaraderie, get insight, and to keep the subject in my face and on my brain so that I am inspired to keep going day in and day out. 

Two of the books I've read recently, along with some of the blogs, centered around overcoming compulsive overeating.  I can identify with some aspects of it, but not all. Yes, I sometimes ate out of boredom. Or because I had just popped a new DVD in. Or because I'd "had a hard day" and "deserved" a "treat".  But I ate a human-sized amount of food. Sure, it was fat and calorie-heavy, and not at all good for me, but it wasn't a dangerously-sized portion.

 Dangerously-sized portions. Image not to scale.

I might've had a Quarter Pounder meal from McDonald's for dinner, and maybe 6 oreos for dessert a little while later.  I know now that the 1000+ calories in the quarter pounder meal is a ridiculous amount to consume for one meal, but if I'd eaten the same weight in a turkey sandwich on wheat with carrot sticks and water it would've been healthy enough.

So it was eye-opening to read about people struggling with the habit or desire to eat an entire large pizza and follow it with an entire carton of ice cream. Even if you replaced that with nothing but lettuce, it would still be gut-busting.

This isn't about "OMG, I wasn't healthy, but THOSE PEOPLE were so much worse!"  Just that we have all had different paths to obesity, and I don't know that I've seen much written about people on a path similar to mine.

I am of two minds on this subject.  One - how totally fricking HARD it must be to have to battle an addiction to binging. You not only have to remove all the yummy, sugary, salty, creamy, greasy goodness you've become accustomed to, you ALSO have to have 1/6 the amount of food you really want to eat.  I'm in awe of the strength it must take to face and overcome that.

I'm an ex-smoker (1 year and 8 months smoke-free, tyvm!). I know that in some ways I will be resisting the urge to light up every second of every day for the rest of my life. I know that if science discovered a way to make cigarettes that did no harm, and didn't make clothes/breath smell, I'd be likely to light up a Marlboro Ultra Light before you could blink.  I know the struggle of fighting an addiction. I can avoid cigarettes and smokers fairly easily. If I had an addiction to overeating, I couldn't avoid being near food or people consuming it.

I think everyone trying to eat healthy experiences some of this. How to avoid the Holiday Spread of Evil, the "It's Shriley in Accounting's Birthday!" brownies, or even the Employee Luncheon of Questionable Origin on a 1400 calorie a day (or vegan, or gluten-free, etc.) diet.  But I imagine that recovering from compulsive overeating makes those run-ins much harder.

On the flip side, I guess I think I feel like it must be nice to have something to point to. A disclaimer here: It is entirely possible that this flip side is wrong, self-centered, narrow-minded, and immature.  For now, blog, you are a diary and not capable of making such harsh judgments against me.

I think part of me wishes I had some... thing ... to point to and say, "THAT'S why I'm fat. That thing over there."  To have a reason/disease/syndrome/imbalance that's to some degree external. To have so clear a reason WHY.

I always used to say, "I don't see why I'm so overweight! I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner...dessert on some days. I'm not eating an entire bag of oreos or anything, so what gives?!"

Admittedly, I knew deep down even then that WHAT I was eating was my problem, even if not as big a problem as how much I was eating.  But I think it would feel like...I had more control? More say over my weight if I were able to say, "Well, I guess that box of donuts, pound of bacon, and half gallon of chocolate milk wasn't the smartest choice for breakfast yesterday..."

As it stands, I can only point to myself. Nope, no glandular problem, evil birth control, physical impairment that makes exercising difficult, addiction, or emotional trauma that makes food the only comforting thing in an unbearable time. None of that.

Why was/am I so fat?

Um...'cause chili cheese fries with ranch dressing taste really good?

'Cause whoever invented Extreme Moose Tracks ice cream should be given a fricking Nobel Prize?

'Cause swinging through McDonald's was the easiest thing to do several times a month when the evenings are just.too.full for full scale cooking and the ensuing clean up?

Is a lifelong affinity for a little extra mayo on my sandwiches genetic?

Is anyone else hungry?

Intro

So my girlfriend (henceforth, "the Girl") has said a few times that I should blog. Hi, I'm J and I am easily persuaded by the suggestions of others. For now I'm going to write as if this is mostly a personal diary, and disregard the non-existent audience out there in the ether.

I guess she specifically meant I should blog about my "weight loss journey". I feel like an imposter, though, writing about this as if I'm some authority on the matter.  I'm not, and this blog is primarily a tool for me to express what I'm thinking/feeling along the way.  Briefest background ever: I'm in my early 30's, a mother, 5'7",  and on August 31st, 2011 I weighed 295.8 lbs. Today I weigh 238.6 lbs. I still have a LONG way to go.

Earlier today I noticed a slight bulge of a muscle on my upper arms. I was like a fetus discovering it has hands. (Yes, I'm thinking of that scene in "Look Who's Talking) My first thought was, "Wow! Look what Gloria (aerobics instructor) has done! She's good!"

I've been taking a cardio/strength class at the local Y twice a week for 6-7 weeks. This might sound admirable, but consider the following: Gloria the instructor is pushing 60; at least a quarter of the class is also pushing or over 60, and the other half that's closer to my age routinely "takes it up a level" and adds extra bounciness/weight/complexity where I do NOT. I have three excuses: Um, did you see the 238.6lbs reference, above?; I have a wonky knee from a car accident; I may have a stress fracture/wonky shin in the same leg with the wonky knee. I WANT to jog and not march in place. I WANT to do a regular jumping jack and not an awkward one handed/one foot version. When I do, however, my shin screams at me. So I march as determinedly as I can, and try to amp things up in ways that won't result in a cast/MRI. I typically use the 5lb weights, and also typically have to collapse midway through the last of the 30-second planks.  Oh, and that whole "lie on your side...now reach around and grab your ankle and hold it behind you to stretch out that thigh" thing? I let out an audible "Pssshhhhhhhaaaa!!" the first time I heard it.  Then I realized I was the only one struggling to do it.

So when I noticed the beginnings of "guns" on my upper arms today (like, BB guns...pea shooters, really...hard to tell what's a muscular bulge and what's just part of that bulge that threatens to smother my elbows), my first thought was not, "Look what I did!" Because I'm fat, right? Because I'm not leaving everyone in that class in the dust, right? I'm modifying most of the moves we do to remove the impact, so I'm not really getting a workout, right?

Wrong, apparently. *I* did this, am doing this. Creating muscles where once there was only dough. There's still dough, and plenty of it, but there are some muscle-ettes in there, too.