March 22, 2013

• 15

  Recently, I met a personal goal. It's a goal that took me a year. Yes, it was a weight loss goal. I'm not, nor have I ever been "obese", however, I have been smaller and more healthy. So last year, my baby was about a year and a half old, I'd had a tubal and knew I wasn't getting pregnant again, I made the decision to lose some of the extra weight I've had hanging around since the first baby. That first baby had been around since 2000, just so you know. I started walking, 3 miles at a time like 3 times a week. I also quit putting sugar in my coffee. I drink a lot of coffee and when I started doing the math, (which means stuff just got serious if I'm bringing out the math) I realized I was just drinking like 12 teaspooons of sugar a day. That's a lot for nothing.  I started watching the sugar and trying to fit in ways to be more active.

  I had no time to work out. I had to do my walking at work, on my lunch. Which meant in the summer I had to bring clothes to change into to go walking because you can't just go walk in 111 degree temps in your work getup. At least, I can't and still be halfway professional looking the second half of the day.  If I'm being honest you can't even do that in like, 80 degree temps. There's sweat, people, and BO.

  Anyhow, after four MONTHS of that I had no weight change. None. zip. nada. zilch. I'll be honest, that was depressing. 3 miles in the hot sun on your lunch break is no small thing.  Re-learning to love coffee without the sugar isn't either. I can still feel the disappointment and the adult fit coming on. I hate this. Why even do it if it doesn't make any difference? I've heard people say they didn't lose weight but they lost inches. Guess what? All my inches were still there. No pants sizes went down. This happened to me once before. I'd had a test done when we were trying to get pregnant the second time around. (ever heard of secondary infertility? Where you've had a baby and can't get pregnant again? We had that. I know, it's hard to believe that now as I sit here with 5 kids, but there's a reason there was a 4 year gap between the first two) Anyhow, all these tests determined I had high cholesterol. At age 24. I was put on a diet and exercise regime which cause me to lose no weight, no inches, and in fact, my cholesterol stayed high. I was told I needed medication which I never took and that story has no conclusion, by the way.

  So, basically I felt like I was doing that all over again last year. All that dadgum work for nothing. I almost quit. Because I like sugar in my coffee. And walking kind of sucks sometimes. So do jumping jacks. Quick, go do 50! No, don't!  You'll feel like you're dying!  Anyway I didn't quit. I kept doing it and I got over my grouchiness and said who cares, at least I'll have some endurance with my kids at the park. That's the one thing that did change. I got winded farther and farther into the 3 miles and eventually, even walking 3 miles didn't wind me at all.

  All this to say that after starting last spring with all that crap, about a week or two ago, I weighed myself and realized I'd lost 15 pounds from last year.  !!  I was sitting there at a weight that was 7lbs more than what I weighed at age 19. When I got married. What a huge deal for me. It totally sucks that it took a year.  I'm still irked about that. I'm also irked that losing that 15 pounds made me feel like maybe I could go 5 more. So I started tracking my calories with my fitness pal and seeing how much I eat and what my exercising is.  I lost one more pound the first week of doing that, and after following it strictly:

  I've gained two pounds.   I can feel the adult size fit/temper tantrum coming on again.  My overemotional self wants to think that all 15 of those pounds mean zip to me now, now that I'm counting my calories working my butt off and GAINING again.  If you're struggling with more weight loss than 15 pounds you probably want to hit me right now and honestly I probably couldn't blame you. I'm just so frustrated with it. In the real scheme of things this is not an actual real problem. In fact, this week alone I have at least 3 other major life issue type problems going on, stressing me out to the MAX. Now that I think about it, this fixation on the 2lbs is probably because there's nothing else I can do for those other problems and no way to help them right now so I can just be mad  about the stinking weight thing.

  Great. I wrote this whole thing to come to that conclusion. If you stuck it out, you're a better man than I am. Thanks for being my virtual therapist today. There's no pay for that job and it's largely boring, but I appreciate you nonetheless.

  • 3:10 pm
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