If there´s one thing of which there won´t be a shortage anytime soon, it´s diet plans.
Every spring, magazines abound with those promises of losing ten pounds in five days, and the bookstores, too, have stacks of books on the neweset dietary fads on prominent display.
And yet, the number of obese people worldwide keeps rising, while there are studies that have found the long-time success rate of diets to be...almost zero.
Even though the number of people who have lost weight on one diet program or another is certainly a lot bigger than zero.
They just didn´t keep it off.
Been there, done that.
You find a plan, one that tells you exactly which foods you may eat, or one that gives you prepackaged and pre-portioned meals, or one where you ingest nothing but shakes made from a powdery substance that may contain all your body needs, but bears no resemblance to actual food.
You stick to that plan for a while. You lose weight.
Maybe you even reach your goal weight.
And then?
You find yourself in the same place you came from where food is concerned.
You still have the same idea of what to eat when not on a diet. You still have the same habits where choice and amounts of food are concerned. You still have the same oversized dinnerware that helped you to get fat, you still serve yourself the same portions you used to eat before the diet.
In short, you have learned nothing from the experience of losing weight, because, heck, it wasn´t you who lost the weight, it was somebody else´s plan losing the weight for you. And you still don´t know how to eat outside of that plan and not regain the weight. That box of chocolates, vat of ice-cream, or giant burger, are there for you to eat the same way you were used to eating before the diet. And sooner or later you will do what you were in the habit of doing, food-wise.
And gain it all back.
As I said, been there, done that.
Yesterday´s math exercise, for me, is also a means of getting off that not-so-merry-go-round.
You see, human beings do have one powerful enemy who also can be a powerful ally. It´s called habit.
The habits that got me fat are the enemy, and those that get me slim are my allies.
If I want to keep the weight off, I just have to throw out the fattening habits, right? Alas, as Mark Twain (I think it was him) pointed out, a bad habit can´t be evicted, it has to be coaxed down the stairs step by step.
Thus, if I wait for the end of a diet to start changing my habits, I will, on top of the uncertainty of what I may eat if I don´t want to regain, have to fight the pull of my old eating habits at full force, too.
Which is why I don´t call what I am doing a diet. It´s in fact a habit-changing programme.
You see, the same habits that would allow me to keep the weight off, will also enable me to lose it in the first place.
I´m doing my experimentation with new habits during the weight loss process, which allows me to find out now already what I have to avoid if I don´t want to regain.
What has, for me, worked best is setting myself a caloric limit for the day (say, 1500 calories) and fill that up with nourishing food. And watch out for foods that cause instant regains and avoid these as often as possible.
Limits instead of complicated plans.
The advantage this has is that I am, right now, finding out which way I can eat for the rest of my life.
This is not a diet I´ll be going "off" someday. It´s for life.
Sounds tough?
I had a buddy at University who had been an elite paratrooper in the Army. So, definitely a fit guy, except he had a peanut allergy which was so severe that it had sent him to the ER several times already.
That guy was religious about avoiding anything with peanuts in it, even margarine made from peanut oil.
If he ingested any of that stuff by accident, it was back to the ER.
Can you guess he didn´t discuss with himself whether a little bit of peanut brittle would be okay? Or mourn the fact he couldn´t eat it?
If I want to keep the excess weight off for good, I must be as careful about keeping away from foods that make me regain., and also about portion sizes.
As simple as that.
And if I lose the excess weight by eating the way I would have to eat at goal already, the new habits will be firmly in place when I get there. Not somebody else´s plan that I can´t wait to get away from, but my own, road-tested, personalized set of successful habits.
Julia
2012/03/29
2012/03/28
Those pounds I want to keep
I just did the math on how much I may eat if I wanted to go back to being normal weighted.
1470 calories a day.
That is, if I stay inactive. Putting some cardio back into the equation might yield me a benefit of another 300 to 400 calories available, but that´s what the numbers are.
Right now, I have been eating around 1500 calories a day. That would be what I need to maintain a weight slightly above my goal of getting below a BMI 25. No getting lower than that unless I cut down on calories.
And- the other bummer- the caloric deficit I create in a day has shrunk to a measly 260 calories, meaning it takes me two weeks to lose a pound of fat at that going rate.
What with the amount of calories spent by my body decreasing with every pound lost, those thirty pounds I still have to lose would take me about 400 days to get rid of.
If I don´t rebound or plateau, that is.
Those weekend regains look a lot more sinister when looked at this way.
And the muffins in the bakery across the street, a lot less attractive. I have to chose what I value more- those and their ilk, or my health.
Mathematics are really great for putting one´s head back on turning in the proper direction.
Julia
1470 calories a day.
That is, if I stay inactive. Putting some cardio back into the equation might yield me a benefit of another 300 to 400 calories available, but that´s what the numbers are.
Right now, I have been eating around 1500 calories a day. That would be what I need to maintain a weight slightly above my goal of getting below a BMI 25. No getting lower than that unless I cut down on calories.
And- the other bummer- the caloric deficit I create in a day has shrunk to a measly 260 calories, meaning it takes me two weeks to lose a pound of fat at that going rate.
What with the amount of calories spent by my body decreasing with every pound lost, those thirty pounds I still have to lose would take me about 400 days to get rid of.
If I don´t rebound or plateau, that is.
Those weekend regains look a lot more sinister when looked at this way.
And the muffins in the bakery across the street, a lot less attractive. I have to chose what I value more- those and their ilk, or my health.
Mathematics are really great for putting one´s head back on turning in the proper direction.
Julia
Piiiizza!
Once a week, at our place, is Pizza Day. Just so there´s one evening a week I won´t have to cook.
For me, that meant having just half a pizza , and watching DH eat a whole one. Not what I liked, really.
Yesterday, the prospect of having to carve a frozen pizza in half started me thinking about what it really was I like about pizza, apart that it´s a fast meal.
And I had a revelation of sorts.
What I like about pizza is...the toppings.
Not the doughy, carb-laden crust. The vegetables on top, the melted cheese, the tomatoes. All things I may eat. The crust, on the other hand, is no different from eating a piece of bread where the effect on my weight is concerned. And bread, along with potatoes, is holding the top place of Things I Shouldn´t Eat, based on two years of observing how my body reacts to certain foodstuffs.
Eat them, and gain. Don´t eat them, and maintain or lose.
Whenever I was having a pizza, I was eating something I should be avoiding just because it came with something I like to eat and may eat.
Which, in turn, engineered a bit more of practical thinking.
If I don´t like to eat the crust anyway...
...why not prepare just the toppings?
And that´s exactly what I did.
Take an ovenproof dish (about the size of a pizza). Put a few slices of roast turkey (thin-cut) or lowfat salami (watch out for sugar) on the bottom, covering it. From the freezer, pick up about a pound total of mixed, cubed frozen veggies (I took onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, and yellow corn, but any veggie you would also find on a pizza will do), put in a bowl and mix with a tablespoon of olive oil, a bit of salt and a generous sprinkle of Italian herb mix. Spread the mix over the dish, sprinkle a bit of grated cheese on, and put in the oven at the setting you´d use for pizza, just about twice as long as you´d keep a pizza in.
Voila- crustless pizza. As tasty as they come. The only disadvantage is that, of course, you´ll have to eat it with a fork and knife out of the dish instead of hand-feeding yourself off a platter. But then, sitting down at a table for dinner is a good idea anyway.
I´ll definitely do this more often.
Julia
For me, that meant having just half a pizza , and watching DH eat a whole one. Not what I liked, really.
Yesterday, the prospect of having to carve a frozen pizza in half started me thinking about what it really was I like about pizza, apart that it´s a fast meal.
And I had a revelation of sorts.
What I like about pizza is...the toppings.
Not the doughy, carb-laden crust. The vegetables on top, the melted cheese, the tomatoes. All things I may eat. The crust, on the other hand, is no different from eating a piece of bread where the effect on my weight is concerned. And bread, along with potatoes, is holding the top place of Things I Shouldn´t Eat, based on two years of observing how my body reacts to certain foodstuffs.
Eat them, and gain. Don´t eat them, and maintain or lose.
Whenever I was having a pizza, I was eating something I should be avoiding just because it came with something I like to eat and may eat.
Which, in turn, engineered a bit more of practical thinking.
If I don´t like to eat the crust anyway...
...why not prepare just the toppings?
And that´s exactly what I did.
Take an ovenproof dish (about the size of a pizza). Put a few slices of roast turkey (thin-cut) or lowfat salami (watch out for sugar) on the bottom, covering it. From the freezer, pick up about a pound total of mixed, cubed frozen veggies (I took onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, and yellow corn, but any veggie you would also find on a pizza will do), put in a bowl and mix with a tablespoon of olive oil, a bit of salt and a generous sprinkle of Italian herb mix. Spread the mix over the dish, sprinkle a bit of grated cheese on, and put in the oven at the setting you´d use for pizza, just about twice as long as you´d keep a pizza in.
Voila- crustless pizza. As tasty as they come. The only disadvantage is that, of course, you´ll have to eat it with a fork and knife out of the dish instead of hand-feeding yourself off a platter. But then, sitting down at a table for dinner is a good idea anyway.
I´ll definitely do this more often.
Julia
2012/03/27
Results are showing (again:()
I happened to meet an old neighbour today on the way to work. She stopped in her tracks, looked at me, and asked in a whisper: "How much weight did you lose?"
That was the good part.
And then came a reminder of things past which I had, while not forgotten, put into a very secluded place of my memory.
"Didn´t you lose so much weight when you were living in the same house as we were, already?"
I did. And then I thought I didn´t need to follow up with watching what I put in my mouth. And I gained all of it back, and then some. And found myself third-degree obese, almost immobile, and despairing of ever losing weight again.
I mentioned before that there is a time between the 80s of last century and the change of the millenium of which I have no data about my weight. I actually avoided the scales during that time a lot. Especially when I could already feel that I had been gaining.
It was during that time that I lost the weight my neighbour talked about. She did, today, even admit that her husband had suspected me of having gotten weight loss surgery, which I hadn´t.
The only thing that I had been doing was...
...you guessed it. Protein shakes for breakfast and journalling what I ate. I had, back then, the old Weight Watchers (TM) programme on a compact disk ( that was before they started their online stuff). Which, finally that I remember now, is also the explanation for the big gap in my weight lists. I had simply kept that list with that programme, and when that became unusable because it wouldn´t work with the more recent operating systems any more, hadn´t bothered to save the data before abandoning the former platform for good.
Today, I wish I had. Saves me right for not backing up my data.
But I digress.
The reminder, to me, was of what would happen if I stopped doing what I do now, if I stopped watching my weight and what I eat, if I were to just go back to mindlessly munching.
These things have been catapulting me back into Obesity Hell once already.
This time, I must not ever forget the lesson to be learned from the past.
I needed that reminder. Even if it came in the guise of a compliment.
Don´t stop doing what works, and don´t go back to doing what didn´t work.
Julia
That was the good part.
And then came a reminder of things past which I had, while not forgotten, put into a very secluded place of my memory.
"Didn´t you lose so much weight when you were living in the same house as we were, already?"
I did. And then I thought I didn´t need to follow up with watching what I put in my mouth. And I gained all of it back, and then some. And found myself third-degree obese, almost immobile, and despairing of ever losing weight again.
I mentioned before that there is a time between the 80s of last century and the change of the millenium of which I have no data about my weight. I actually avoided the scales during that time a lot. Especially when I could already feel that I had been gaining.
It was during that time that I lost the weight my neighbour talked about. She did, today, even admit that her husband had suspected me of having gotten weight loss surgery, which I hadn´t.
The only thing that I had been doing was...
...you guessed it. Protein shakes for breakfast and journalling what I ate. I had, back then, the old Weight Watchers (TM) programme on a compact disk ( that was before they started their online stuff). Which, finally that I remember now, is also the explanation for the big gap in my weight lists. I had simply kept that list with that programme, and when that became unusable because it wouldn´t work with the more recent operating systems any more, hadn´t bothered to save the data before abandoning the former platform for good.
Today, I wish I had. Saves me right for not backing up my data.
But I digress.
The reminder, to me, was of what would happen if I stopped doing what I do now, if I stopped watching my weight and what I eat, if I were to just go back to mindlessly munching.
These things have been catapulting me back into Obesity Hell once already.
This time, I must not ever forget the lesson to be learned from the past.
I needed that reminder. Even if it came in the guise of a compliment.
Don´t stop doing what works, and don´t go back to doing what didn´t work.
Julia
2012/03/21
Herbs and spice and anything nice
That´s what constitutes an important part of my weight loss success.
You see, I just dislike bland foods. For me, things have to taste good.
Many so-called "diet"foods, unfortunately, fall in the "bland" category. Which is where my spice drawer comes in. I have a big drawer in my kitchen filled with all kinds of spices.
Curry, tandoori spice, parsley, oregano, tarragon, chili, savory, dill, mugwort, herbes de provence, ginger, cinnamon, curcuma, sage, caraway.
No dish, ever, leaves my kitchen the preparation of which doesn´t involve a foray into that drawer.
The advantage of spices and herbs is two-fold. For one, they give flavor to even the most bland-tasting ingredients.
I can use chicken breast for cooking several days in a row and have it taste totally different every time. Think Italian (oregano and tomatoes, or sage), Indian (curry and curcuma), French (herbes de provence).
Their second advantage is that they do even facilitate digestion, in some cases. I´d never do a dish that contains cabbage in any form without adding some ground caraway seeds, or one with goose meat in it without a sprinkle of mugwort.
The medicinal properties of herbs are another matter that bears some researching.
To me, they are mostly secondary. What matters is that a well-seasoned dish is, to me, so satisfying that I need to eat a lot less of it to feel sated than if it were some tasteless mush.
And that, in the long run, helps me stick to my guns where portion control is concerned.
Julia
You see, I just dislike bland foods. For me, things have to taste good.
Many so-called "diet"foods, unfortunately, fall in the "bland" category. Which is where my spice drawer comes in. I have a big drawer in my kitchen filled with all kinds of spices.
Curry, tandoori spice, parsley, oregano, tarragon, chili, savory, dill, mugwort, herbes de provence, ginger, cinnamon, curcuma, sage, caraway.
No dish, ever, leaves my kitchen the preparation of which doesn´t involve a foray into that drawer.
The advantage of spices and herbs is two-fold. For one, they give flavor to even the most bland-tasting ingredients.
I can use chicken breast for cooking several days in a row and have it taste totally different every time. Think Italian (oregano and tomatoes, or sage), Indian (curry and curcuma), French (herbes de provence).
Their second advantage is that they do even facilitate digestion, in some cases. I´d never do a dish that contains cabbage in any form without adding some ground caraway seeds, or one with goose meat in it without a sprinkle of mugwort.
The medicinal properties of herbs are another matter that bears some researching.
To me, they are mostly secondary. What matters is that a well-seasoned dish is, to me, so satisfying that I need to eat a lot less of it to feel sated than if it were some tasteless mush.
And that, in the long run, helps me stick to my guns where portion control is concerned.
Julia
Through the barricade
As per this morning, I have reached a BMI of 29.9. Which means I am no longer clinically obese. Just overweight.
I haven´t been just overweight since the last millenium.
Most of this millenium, actually, I spent at a BMI between 40 and 42. It has taken me two years to come to this point.
And I am still a bit dizzy.
BMI below 30 means I have finished more than two thirds of the way down to a normal weight (defined as BMI smaller than 25).
What it definitely doesn´t mean is that I could or should stop recondensing myself. It´s an intermediate goal, though an important one, but I still have about thirty more pounds to go before I can call myself normal-weighted again.
In a book I leafed through at the mall some days ago, the author, who had lost a great amount of weight on a programme at a hospital, described an exercise that she was made to do before leaving. It consisted of putting on a vest with lots of pockets, which were then loaded with lead weights up to the amount she had lost. Thus attired, they made her climb some stairs and walk around. The exercise was done to remind her of what it had been like to be at her starting weight, so she´d not forget what it had felt like.
For me, there´s one thing I know: the difference between BMI 42 and BMI 29 is so big that I can only guess at what difference those last thirty pounds would make.
I am intending to find out.
Even if it takes another two years.
Julia
I haven´t been just overweight since the last millenium.
Most of this millenium, actually, I spent at a BMI between 40 and 42. It has taken me two years to come to this point.
And I am still a bit dizzy.
BMI below 30 means I have finished more than two thirds of the way down to a normal weight (defined as BMI smaller than 25).
What it definitely doesn´t mean is that I could or should stop recondensing myself. It´s an intermediate goal, though an important one, but I still have about thirty more pounds to go before I can call myself normal-weighted again.
In a book I leafed through at the mall some days ago, the author, who had lost a great amount of weight on a programme at a hospital, described an exercise that she was made to do before leaving. It consisted of putting on a vest with lots of pockets, which were then loaded with lead weights up to the amount she had lost. Thus attired, they made her climb some stairs and walk around. The exercise was done to remind her of what it had been like to be at her starting weight, so she´d not forget what it had felt like.
For me, there´s one thing I know: the difference between BMI 42 and BMI 29 is so big that I can only guess at what difference those last thirty pounds would make.
I am intending to find out.
Even if it takes another two years.
Julia
2012/03/20
Creeping closer
I know, I know. Getting below one´s basal metabolic rate in calories may kick you into starvation mode.
But I am wildly determined to break the barrier of obesity within this week, before DH comes back. So, I have been skipping dinner, mostly, and limited myself to about half of what I usually eat. And things are moving, albeit slowly, in the right direction. Per this morning, I was 250 grams away from that limit. 0.55 pounds. And at a weight I haven´t had since about the turn of the millenium.
I know that the way I eat this week is not sustainable in the long run, but that´s not what it´s about. What matters is that I need to break this barrier, to motivate myself to go on doing the right thing.
Um, what? no, I don´t presently do execise. Guess what, I did lose another ten kilos since stopping, so, it´s obvious that what I do doesn´t work just because I am expending so many calories. Which is the point.
You cannot out-exercise a bad diet, as someone said. If one gets the facts on metabolism, the basal metabolic rate (that´s what your body expends when you are doing nothing but just living) accounts for the majority of calories used, while one would have to do some rather heavy exercising to use up anything like a similar amout by exercising. Just try and google for those web sites that tell you how many minutes of exercise you have to do to offset the calories of a single cheeseburger or one piece of cake.
I, for one, am full-time employed and simply don´t have time to do more than sixty minutes a day of any activity on top of what I must do. Nor am I ready to sacrifice all of these sixty minutes to getting sweaty and out of breath.
So, if I want to use up all those calories stored away in my condensable matter, what I must do is refuel my body below the amount it uses up. Which is just what I do now.
And no, with some thirty pounds to go till I am normal-weighted again, I´m not in danger of running out of fuel anytime soon. Besides, when I have broken that barrier, I promise I´ll take it a bit easier again. This is, after all, a long-term project.
Julia
But I am wildly determined to break the barrier of obesity within this week, before DH comes back. So, I have been skipping dinner, mostly, and limited myself to about half of what I usually eat. And things are moving, albeit slowly, in the right direction. Per this morning, I was 250 grams away from that limit. 0.55 pounds. And at a weight I haven´t had since about the turn of the millenium.
I know that the way I eat this week is not sustainable in the long run, but that´s not what it´s about. What matters is that I need to break this barrier, to motivate myself to go on doing the right thing.
Um, what? no, I don´t presently do execise. Guess what, I did lose another ten kilos since stopping, so, it´s obvious that what I do doesn´t work just because I am expending so many calories. Which is the point.
You cannot out-exercise a bad diet, as someone said. If one gets the facts on metabolism, the basal metabolic rate (that´s what your body expends when you are doing nothing but just living) accounts for the majority of calories used, while one would have to do some rather heavy exercising to use up anything like a similar amout by exercising. Just try and google for those web sites that tell you how many minutes of exercise you have to do to offset the calories of a single cheeseburger or one piece of cake.
I, for one, am full-time employed and simply don´t have time to do more than sixty minutes a day of any activity on top of what I must do. Nor am I ready to sacrifice all of these sixty minutes to getting sweaty and out of breath.
So, if I want to use up all those calories stored away in my condensable matter, what I must do is refuel my body below the amount it uses up. Which is just what I do now.
And no, with some thirty pounds to go till I am normal-weighted again, I´m not in danger of running out of fuel anytime soon. Besides, when I have broken that barrier, I promise I´ll take it a bit easier again. This is, after all, a long-term project.
Julia
2012/03/19
Need to know
I would have thought that my weight would have moved downwards, what with most of Saturday being spent getting the car repaired, and then walking home from the railway station. Lunch was nonexistant, dinner was leftover vegetable soup, and on Sunday, I tried to be very good about avoiding carbs, leaving the rolls for breakfast and the pommes croquette to DH and MIL. The end result? Up half a pound from Friday.
As I have only myself to feed this week (DH´s still at MIL´s), I am really curious if I´ll manage to get my weight moving downwards again if I bring out the big guns (no carbs, less than 1000 calories a day, and, if the weather forecast should prove right, resuming my morning walks, too). Being stuck on a plateau for over three months now, just before crossing the line to no longer being obese, is vexing.
With spring approaching rapidly and the first sunny days bringing temperatures up, it´s time for another wardrobe rollover. This year, the number of clothes I have in my exact size has gotten rather small, while there are bound to be plenty of things that have, by now, gotten too big for me to wear any more. While that looks like another trip to Goodwill in the foreseeable future, what is annoying is that I had hoped to be a bit further down with my weight so as to be able to buy any replacements in the next-smaller size from what I have now. That size, from what I remember, would fit me down to goal weight, at least in tops, blouses and jackets. As it is, I´ll probably have to buy some replacements that will take me through one more year, but hopefully will be too big, too, by next year.
When putting away my fur jacket and the warmest of the winter coats today, I came upon a navy blue blazer that I had bought at my top weight, which had somehow survived the last purge. Putting that one on in front of a mirror gave a striking impression of just how far I have already recondensed- I´d be able to button it on the side seams, under my arms! As I never again want to have to wear that size, it´s a choice of keeping it as a reminder, or donating it immediately. What with closet rod space being at a premium, keeping it for demonstration purposes probably isn´t the better option.
I think I know what I´ll use the next evenings for...there might be even more like that one hidden in my closet!
Julia
As I have only myself to feed this week (DH´s still at MIL´s), I am really curious if I´ll manage to get my weight moving downwards again if I bring out the big guns (no carbs, less than 1000 calories a day, and, if the weather forecast should prove right, resuming my morning walks, too). Being stuck on a plateau for over three months now, just before crossing the line to no longer being obese, is vexing.
With spring approaching rapidly and the first sunny days bringing temperatures up, it´s time for another wardrobe rollover. This year, the number of clothes I have in my exact size has gotten rather small, while there are bound to be plenty of things that have, by now, gotten too big for me to wear any more. While that looks like another trip to Goodwill in the foreseeable future, what is annoying is that I had hoped to be a bit further down with my weight so as to be able to buy any replacements in the next-smaller size from what I have now. That size, from what I remember, would fit me down to goal weight, at least in tops, blouses and jackets. As it is, I´ll probably have to buy some replacements that will take me through one more year, but hopefully will be too big, too, by next year.
When putting away my fur jacket and the warmest of the winter coats today, I came upon a navy blue blazer that I had bought at my top weight, which had somehow survived the last purge. Putting that one on in front of a mirror gave a striking impression of just how far I have already recondensed- I´d be able to button it on the side seams, under my arms! As I never again want to have to wear that size, it´s a choice of keeping it as a reminder, or donating it immediately. What with closet rod space being at a premium, keeping it for demonstration purposes probably isn´t the better option.
I think I know what I´ll use the next evenings for...there might be even more like that one hidden in my closet!
Julia
Losing my cool(er)
We´ve been visiting MIL over the weekend, and on Saturday, we just wanted to do a little shopping with her. When we came to our car... there was a puddle of some greasy-feeling liquid under the front fender, and a steady drip of more of the same coming from somewhere inside the engine compartment. So, for the second time in as many months, we had to call road assistance. When I described the problem, they came with a tow truck at once.
As it was Saturday, the nearest dealership of our brand was closed, so, the truck took us- and our car- to a repair shop that was open on Saturdays. Of course, that was some thirty kilometers away, and when the tow truck guy had unloaded our car, and after having to stand in line for the better part of the afternoon, it turned out the radiator was destroyed completely, most likely by something hitting it as in a stone or something. They did, also of course, not have the parts needed to replace it, and, as the car couldn´t be driven any more with the cooling system shot, we had to leave it there until they get the parts and are able to do the repairs, which will be taking the better part of this week. Besides, the car has air condition which means they have to replace not one, but two radiators, doubling the asking price of the repairs.
Bummer.
Still, it could have been worse.
First of all, we were lucky that the coolant didn´t drip out completely while we were still on the road, as we might not have noticed anything amiss then before the engine was already overheated. The repair shop we were towed to is conveniently situated near a railway station, so, we could take a local train back to MIL´s place instead of paying through the nose for a taxi. And DH had intended to stay for several days anyway because he had some errands to run for MIL which can´t be done on weekends, so, he´ll just prolong his stay until the repairs are done. Having an emergency fund in place means the cost is covered, too, so things might have been a lot worse than they are.
We ought to count ourselves lucky.
Which, of course, doesn´t help a lot- the things we wanted to do on Saturday had to be left undone, and I, for one, could have done without the extra stress.
I just hope that this time, there´ll be no more trouble with our car in the foreseeable future. Three times is enough.
Julia
As it was Saturday, the nearest dealership of our brand was closed, so, the truck took us- and our car- to a repair shop that was open on Saturdays. Of course, that was some thirty kilometers away, and when the tow truck guy had unloaded our car, and after having to stand in line for the better part of the afternoon, it turned out the radiator was destroyed completely, most likely by something hitting it as in a stone or something. They did, also of course, not have the parts needed to replace it, and, as the car couldn´t be driven any more with the cooling system shot, we had to leave it there until they get the parts and are able to do the repairs, which will be taking the better part of this week. Besides, the car has air condition which means they have to replace not one, but two radiators, doubling the asking price of the repairs.
Bummer.
Still, it could have been worse.
First of all, we were lucky that the coolant didn´t drip out completely while we were still on the road, as we might not have noticed anything amiss then before the engine was already overheated. The repair shop we were towed to is conveniently situated near a railway station, so, we could take a local train back to MIL´s place instead of paying through the nose for a taxi. And DH had intended to stay for several days anyway because he had some errands to run for MIL which can´t be done on weekends, so, he´ll just prolong his stay until the repairs are done. Having an emergency fund in place means the cost is covered, too, so things might have been a lot worse than they are.
We ought to count ourselves lucky.
Which, of course, doesn´t help a lot- the things we wanted to do on Saturday had to be left undone, and I, for one, could have done without the extra stress.
I just hope that this time, there´ll be no more trouble with our car in the foreseeable future. Three times is enough.
Julia
2012/03/16
Sinus curve
This week, I´ve been having a bout with the common cold that was, all things considered, much lighter than what I used to have in the past years. Still, I was feeling a bit "off" for some days, and my sinuses are still feeling a bit stuffy.
I haven´t felt like eating too much, either, but my weight is still pretty much stuck. One pound above the limit of morbid obesity. Never mind, I know that that pound, too, is bound to come off as soon as my body is ready to recondense it.
Being a European size 44 again in jackets has brought up some regrets about the leather jackets I used to have in that size. I donated almost all of them because I did at that time not believe any more that I would ever be anything but fat. Today, I could wear them again. But then I know that there will probably be other jackets coming my way, and in the meantime, somebody else might have gotten good use out of them. As it is, I´m not going to replace them anytime soon. After all, I´m still more than thirty pounds away from being normal-weighted, and that is where I want to go in the long term. Getting to goal might mean going another two or three sizes down, too, and I´m not about to spend a lot of money on clothes that will be too big long before having had a chance of being worn often enough to justify their price. Besides, the ones I have in an intermediary size- the ones that were wide enough for me to keep on the off chance they´d ever fit again- aren´t yet too loose to wear. What with fashions being a bit oversized, I intend to wear them as long as possible (they are old favorites, too, which did perhaps influence my decision to not give up hoping they´d fit again).
And guess what- it feels good being able to wear them, and not have them cling to me like too-tight sausage skins!
Julia
I haven´t felt like eating too much, either, but my weight is still pretty much stuck. One pound above the limit of morbid obesity. Never mind, I know that that pound, too, is bound to come off as soon as my body is ready to recondense it.
Being a European size 44 again in jackets has brought up some regrets about the leather jackets I used to have in that size. I donated almost all of them because I did at that time not believe any more that I would ever be anything but fat. Today, I could wear them again. But then I know that there will probably be other jackets coming my way, and in the meantime, somebody else might have gotten good use out of them. As it is, I´m not going to replace them anytime soon. After all, I´m still more than thirty pounds away from being normal-weighted, and that is where I want to go in the long term. Getting to goal might mean going another two or three sizes down, too, and I´m not about to spend a lot of money on clothes that will be too big long before having had a chance of being worn often enough to justify their price. Besides, the ones I have in an intermediary size- the ones that were wide enough for me to keep on the off chance they´d ever fit again- aren´t yet too loose to wear. What with fashions being a bit oversized, I intend to wear them as long as possible (they are old favorites, too, which did perhaps influence my decision to not give up hoping they´d fit again).
And guess what- it feels good being able to wear them, and not have them cling to me like too-tight sausage skins!
Julia
2012/03/15
Ribs and clavicles
I knew they had to be somewhere underneath all this fat, but yesterday...
...DH hugged me, and suddenly he paused and said "what´s this?". with his index finger running down my flank, probing for something, and then poking me a bit to show me what he meant.
What the..?
I touched that spot, too, and burst out laughing (as he´d probably intended, too). "These are called ribs, darling, and yes, I have them, too".
On closer inspection in the mirror, I found that my clavicles have emerged from their longtime hiding place, too.
So it seems to be true that my body is rearranging itself at the weight I have reached before recondensing further. Being able to feel my clavicles and ribs again instead of a solid layer of fat covering them feels good.
So, even though the scales haven´t really moved in the right direction lately, it seems I´m still recondensing. Perhaps it´s just my skin shrinking back to my present size, but I am getting slimmer.
And when my body has done adapting to its present weight, maybe I´ll be able to lose some weight again.
Julia
...DH hugged me, and suddenly he paused and said "what´s this?". with his index finger running down my flank, probing for something, and then poking me a bit to show me what he meant.
What the..?
I touched that spot, too, and burst out laughing (as he´d probably intended, too). "These are called ribs, darling, and yes, I have them, too".
On closer inspection in the mirror, I found that my clavicles have emerged from their longtime hiding place, too.
So it seems to be true that my body is rearranging itself at the weight I have reached before recondensing further. Being able to feel my clavicles and ribs again instead of a solid layer of fat covering them feels good.
So, even though the scales haven´t really moved in the right direction lately, it seems I´m still recondensing. Perhaps it´s just my skin shrinking back to my present size, but I am getting slimmer.
And when my body has done adapting to its present weight, maybe I´ll be able to lose some weight again.
Julia
2012/03/14
What to do if you can´t exercise
Exercise, to me, used to mean jogging. Panting, red-faced, with my knees and feet hurting from the jarring impact of too many pounds.
So, I had given up exercise completely.
Until that fateful day when I found myself bent over with a slipped disk and unable to reach up to the cupboard over my sink to get a glass out from it.
With short, shuffling steps (couldn´t pick my feet off the floor because this so d...hurt) I went to the umbrella stand and took out my trekking poles. The collapsible kind that mountaineers use, and that, for me, had allowed me to stay mobile at all in spite of my being morbidly obese. I knew I had to do something for my back muscles, and also get rid of those 100-plus extra pounds I had acquired over the years. Jogging, for obvious reasons, wasn´t it. I was, at the time, glad if I managed to just walk.
On the next day, I took my trekking poles out for a walk in the park. I had to sit down every 100 meters, gasping for air, but I did, on that day, walk about a kilometer.
And the next day, again. And the next.
There´s a name for that. Nordic walking. I did actually, from an earlier attempt at recondensing myself, have a pair of Nordic walking poles, too, which came out as soon as I didn´t need to lean on the poles with my full weight any more.
The biggest benefit for me was that you get a good workout for your upper body, too, and the legs are spared from those jarring impacts of too many pounds crashing down on your knees and ankles with full force of gravity. And you get to burn more calories, too, because you use not only your leg muscles. (The book I linked to seems to be only available in German, sorry).
So this is what I am going to resume as soon as the weather will allow it. Perhaps I´ll be able to get off this plateau then.
Julia
So, I had given up exercise completely.
Until that fateful day when I found myself bent over with a slipped disk and unable to reach up to the cupboard over my sink to get a glass out from it.
With short, shuffling steps (couldn´t pick my feet off the floor because this so d...hurt) I went to the umbrella stand and took out my trekking poles. The collapsible kind that mountaineers use, and that, for me, had allowed me to stay mobile at all in spite of my being morbidly obese. I knew I had to do something for my back muscles, and also get rid of those 100-plus extra pounds I had acquired over the years. Jogging, for obvious reasons, wasn´t it. I was, at the time, glad if I managed to just walk.
On the next day, I took my trekking poles out for a walk in the park. I had to sit down every 100 meters, gasping for air, but I did, on that day, walk about a kilometer.
And the next day, again. And the next.
There´s a name for that. Nordic walking. I did actually, from an earlier attempt at recondensing myself, have a pair of Nordic walking poles, too, which came out as soon as I didn´t need to lean on the poles with my full weight any more.
The biggest benefit for me was that you get a good workout for your upper body, too, and the legs are spared from those jarring impacts of too many pounds crashing down on your knees and ankles with full force of gravity. And you get to burn more calories, too, because you use not only your leg muscles. (The book I linked to seems to be only available in German, sorry).
So this is what I am going to resume as soon as the weather will allow it. Perhaps I´ll be able to get off this plateau then.
Julia
2012/03/12
Keep calm and carry on...
I missed that deadline. By a measly 300 grams (0.66 pounds). So, I´m a year older and still morbidly obese.
Does that vex me? Of course. But it doesn´t mean I´m going to quit. Because even with plateauing twice during the last year, I am still down 10 kilos (that´s 22 pounds) from what I weighed last year. Being morbidly obese by twenty-plus pounds or by less than a pound makes for a big enough difference that I know that it has been worth it. Besides, the distance between me and the limit of obesity hasn´t grown bigger just because I had hoped to cross it sooner.
So, perseverance is the word. Sticking to my plan, and knowing that, even when nothing seems to move, my body is working on recondensing itself, as long as I eat under my caloric limit and keep clear of foods that don´t agree with me weightloss-wise (I´m talking about you, potato).
After two years of watching my intake like a hawk, I have a relatively reliable idea about what foods will cause those crazy several-pounds-in-a-day swings. If I have been eating very few carbs for a while, reintroducing them will invariably mean two to three pounds up the next morning. That computes to one unit of carbs re-filling the body´s empty carbohydrate stores, plus twice the amount of water that the body will store along with the carbs. Same thing about eating something salty- I know that dishes with soy sauce, or similar salty ingredients, will make me retain about two pounds of water. Combine both, and voila- five pounds up in a single day.
The important part of this is the word "water".
What I gain after such meals, provided I don´t consume more total calories than my body expends, is water.
Not fat.
I may even be losing fat on such a day without being able to notice it on the scale, because the water retention covers it up.
If I get off carbs again, skip the sodium and drink plenty of fluids to help my body retain less water, that excess liquid will leave my body again, and what comes up on the scales then is seemingly as rapid a loss as I gained those water pounds.
Knowing the reactions of my body is, therefore, the best antidote to weight loss frustration. And, of course, going back to low-carb low-sodium business after such meals.
And reminding myself that slow steps can take you where you want to go, too.
Julia
Does that vex me? Of course. But it doesn´t mean I´m going to quit. Because even with plateauing twice during the last year, I am still down 10 kilos (that´s 22 pounds) from what I weighed last year. Being morbidly obese by twenty-plus pounds or by less than a pound makes for a big enough difference that I know that it has been worth it. Besides, the distance between me and the limit of obesity hasn´t grown bigger just because I had hoped to cross it sooner.
So, perseverance is the word. Sticking to my plan, and knowing that, even when nothing seems to move, my body is working on recondensing itself, as long as I eat under my caloric limit and keep clear of foods that don´t agree with me weightloss-wise (I´m talking about you, potato).
After two years of watching my intake like a hawk, I have a relatively reliable idea about what foods will cause those crazy several-pounds-in-a-day swings. If I have been eating very few carbs for a while, reintroducing them will invariably mean two to three pounds up the next morning. That computes to one unit of carbs re-filling the body´s empty carbohydrate stores, plus twice the amount of water that the body will store along with the carbs. Same thing about eating something salty- I know that dishes with soy sauce, or similar salty ingredients, will make me retain about two pounds of water. Combine both, and voila- five pounds up in a single day.
The important part of this is the word "water".
What I gain after such meals, provided I don´t consume more total calories than my body expends, is water.
Not fat.
I may even be losing fat on such a day without being able to notice it on the scale, because the water retention covers it up.
If I get off carbs again, skip the sodium and drink plenty of fluids to help my body retain less water, that excess liquid will leave my body again, and what comes up on the scales then is seemingly as rapid a loss as I gained those water pounds.
Knowing the reactions of my body is, therefore, the best antidote to weight loss frustration. And, of course, going back to low-carb low-sodium business after such meals.
And reminding myself that slow steps can take you where you want to go, too.
Julia
2012/03/09
Half a lousy kilogram...
..is what separates me from the land of Just Overweight right now. And my body, once more, has decided to hang on to it. For about three months now, my weight has been oscillating by some five pounds, always just above target. And even more than a full week with no carbs hasn´t helped me to break that barrier. Yes, I have been, on average, maintaining. But the downward line that looked so good in my weight graph until just before Christmas has been replaced by a mostly horizontal sinus wave kind of thing that looks like- frustration!
I know that my body is probably doing what it did last year when I plateaued for the first time, namely, rearranging itself at the weight reached, but still- last year that took over six months before anything would budge again. That this should happen again so close to getting away from morbid obesity is annoying.
The only thing I can do is keep staying on plan and hope that someday there´ll be a visit from the whoosh fairy and things will move downward again.
Well, perhaps, what with spring arriving, I should take up walking again. It´s just that it´s still freezing in the morning (which is the only time of day I´d have time to exercise), and I´m rather glad to have made it through this winter without catching a cold that far.
Until then, I keep myself motivated with small things, like wearing shoes that have a bit more of heel, which I couldn´t do for the longest time. These days, I rarely wear my flat shoes any more. Seeing my reflection in the glass door of our office building in my four-inch-heel ankle boots instead of flat-footing it to work gives me a lift every morning. And, guess what, my feet don´t even hurt in the evenings.
Now if I could only get off that plateau...
Julia
I know that my body is probably doing what it did last year when I plateaued for the first time, namely, rearranging itself at the weight reached, but still- last year that took over six months before anything would budge again. That this should happen again so close to getting away from morbid obesity is annoying.
The only thing I can do is keep staying on plan and hope that someday there´ll be a visit from the whoosh fairy and things will move downward again.
Well, perhaps, what with spring arriving, I should take up walking again. It´s just that it´s still freezing in the morning (which is the only time of day I´d have time to exercise), and I´m rather glad to have made it through this winter without catching a cold that far.
Until then, I keep myself motivated with small things, like wearing shoes that have a bit more of heel, which I couldn´t do for the longest time. These days, I rarely wear my flat shoes any more. Seeing my reflection in the glass door of our office building in my four-inch-heel ankle boots instead of flat-footing it to work gives me a lift every morning. And, guess what, my feet don´t even hurt in the evenings.
Now if I could only get off that plateau...
Julia
2012/03/08
If you can´t say something kind...
On opening my bloglist this morning, I came upon (link removed ) As the comment function on that blog seems to be a little off, I´ll reply here (and hope the person addressed and the one who was the topic of that post will read it).
In my experience it´s quite normal having to experiment with what works for oneself, and guess what- it´s different for everyone, so nobody should look down on somebody else just because that person is still in the stage of experimenting with different foodstuffs. The menu suggested by the poster, for example, would make me gain some two to three pounds in water weight because of the oatmeal, quinoa and honey, which would take several days to go away again. It´s true that that kind of experimentation (reintroducing foodstuffs and see what happens) that the person who seems to be the topic of that post is doing won´t happen when you eat preselected, preprepared meals, so, it´s coming later for that person than for someone who never took refuge to a readymade meal plan. But the person addressed in that post has managed to keep off most of what she lost in absolute numbers, even though she is , right now, struggling with finding out just what she may eat when she´s off the meals-ready-to-eat plan. IMHO, it takes a lot of honesty with oneself to be that open about one´s struggles. Just because the poster seems to have found out what works for her doesn´t mean she´s right in bashing someone who is still on the road to there.
Haven´t we all been shamed often enough before we started our journey?
And how much weight did we lose by being shamed?
Learning what one may eat can be difficult, especially since it´s often the things one definitely shouldn´t eat that hold the most allure. Realizing what they are, and then getting to the point where the cravings for the familiar foodstuffs take a back seat to the insight that they are just not good for you, is a bit like ending a relationship. You´ll feel sad even if you intellectually know that guy wasn´t good for you in the long run.
Ending one´s relationship to a food, especially if it´s one that was eaten because it made one feel comforted, brings the same kind of sadness, and takes you through all the stages of grieving. Look those up in a psychology book, and you´ll find that they include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance.
So, it´s not a thing that will happen immediately when you notice some food isn´t good for you. We are, after all, not talking about a food that will give you allergic shock, or make you vomit five minutes after eating it- those will not be someone´s favourites anyway. The negative consequences of eating our once comfort foods are not happening that immediately, so, it takes longer to find out which ones are bad and it also keeps you in the bargaining stage a lot longer, as in "just a bit of it won´t harm me".
If someone were to grieve for a different kind of loss, would the above poster try to get her through that by shaming her? I hope not.
If you can´t say something kind, sometimes it´s better to say nothing.
Julia
In my experience it´s quite normal having to experiment with what works for oneself, and guess what- it´s different for everyone, so nobody should look down on somebody else just because that person is still in the stage of experimenting with different foodstuffs. The menu suggested by the poster, for example, would make me gain some two to three pounds in water weight because of the oatmeal, quinoa and honey, which would take several days to go away again. It´s true that that kind of experimentation (reintroducing foodstuffs and see what happens) that the person who seems to be the topic of that post is doing won´t happen when you eat preselected, preprepared meals, so, it´s coming later for that person than for someone who never took refuge to a readymade meal plan. But the person addressed in that post has managed to keep off most of what she lost in absolute numbers, even though she is , right now, struggling with finding out just what she may eat when she´s off the meals-ready-to-eat plan. IMHO, it takes a lot of honesty with oneself to be that open about one´s struggles. Just because the poster seems to have found out what works for her doesn´t mean she´s right in bashing someone who is still on the road to there.
Haven´t we all been shamed often enough before we started our journey?
And how much weight did we lose by being shamed?
Learning what one may eat can be difficult, especially since it´s often the things one definitely shouldn´t eat that hold the most allure. Realizing what they are, and then getting to the point where the cravings for the familiar foodstuffs take a back seat to the insight that they are just not good for you, is a bit like ending a relationship. You´ll feel sad even if you intellectually know that guy wasn´t good for you in the long run.
Ending one´s relationship to a food, especially if it´s one that was eaten because it made one feel comforted, brings the same kind of sadness, and takes you through all the stages of grieving. Look those up in a psychology book, and you´ll find that they include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance.
So, it´s not a thing that will happen immediately when you notice some food isn´t good for you. We are, after all, not talking about a food that will give you allergic shock, or make you vomit five minutes after eating it- those will not be someone´s favourites anyway. The negative consequences of eating our once comfort foods are not happening that immediately, so, it takes longer to find out which ones are bad and it also keeps you in the bargaining stage a lot longer, as in "just a bit of it won´t harm me".
If someone were to grieve for a different kind of loss, would the above poster try to get her through that by shaming her? I hope not.
If you can´t say something kind, sometimes it´s better to say nothing.
Julia
2012/03/07
Countdown running
There´s a goal, and then there´s the time to reach it. With the latter running out fast, I have been cutting out carbs completely for about a week now, and find myself, by today´s weigh-in, 700 grams ( 1.54 pounds) away from my minigoal, with four days to go. Of course, just in time, there´s Aunt Flo visiting, too, which usually means my weight going up about two pounds, so I still hope for some of that dropping off again, but still, it looks as if I am going to miss my target by a mere fraction of a kilogram. I´ll stick to no carbs anyway, and see just how close I can get to that magic limit of just overweight, or even cross it.
Seeing how slowly my weight is inching down, and how fast it would go up whenever I went off plan even for just a weekend, brings a disturbing reminder.
This is for life. I will never again be able to eat the way I have been used to do, unless I want to regain all I have lost. And it takes willpower. Plenty of it. Somebody for whom food has always been just food, and not the cure-it-all antidote to any kind of intense feeling, perhaps won´t be able to understand that.
You see, when I was stressed out, I ate. When I was angry, I ate. When I was worried, I ate. When I was looking forward to something good, I ate. There simply wasn´t any situation in which I would not reach for food in order not to feel what I was feeling. The sensation of being stuffed, the sugar coma that comes after downing that bag full of cookies or that vat of ice cream, were, for the longest time, preferable to feeling what I felt, and to being there in my life. I kept a veritable pantry at my office, so as to never be without something to wolf down should stress arise. My handbags were holding bags of nuts and chocolate, and my coat pockets were rustling with empty wrappers from candy bars.
To get where I am today, I had to stop all of this. No more eating myself into a chocolate coma, no more crunching down my anger with the contents of a bag of peanuts.
I am, now, forced to do what somebody who never had an eating disorder is doing all the time: face my feelings, live through them, even if it makes me uncomfortable.
Food, for me, may never again be anything but what my body needs to be nourished. It isn´t a cure-all for bad feelings. And it isn´t a replacement for those elusive other things I might want from life. Things like being loved, or being comforted, or even just taking a break when my energy is running low.
Whenever I feel like digging into that vat of ice cream, or doing something similarly stupid, I must now stop and look at what it is that set me off, and what I could do to deal with it that doesn´t involve eating.
Sometimes, that´s quite difficult. But I´m getting better at it, and that´s why I still hope that I may be normal-weighted again some day.
Julia
Seeing how slowly my weight is inching down, and how fast it would go up whenever I went off plan even for just a weekend, brings a disturbing reminder.
This is for life. I will never again be able to eat the way I have been used to do, unless I want to regain all I have lost. And it takes willpower. Plenty of it. Somebody for whom food has always been just food, and not the cure-it-all antidote to any kind of intense feeling, perhaps won´t be able to understand that.
You see, when I was stressed out, I ate. When I was angry, I ate. When I was worried, I ate. When I was looking forward to something good, I ate. There simply wasn´t any situation in which I would not reach for food in order not to feel what I was feeling. The sensation of being stuffed, the sugar coma that comes after downing that bag full of cookies or that vat of ice cream, were, for the longest time, preferable to feeling what I felt, and to being there in my life. I kept a veritable pantry at my office, so as to never be without something to wolf down should stress arise. My handbags were holding bags of nuts and chocolate, and my coat pockets were rustling with empty wrappers from candy bars.
To get where I am today, I had to stop all of this. No more eating myself into a chocolate coma, no more crunching down my anger with the contents of a bag of peanuts.
I am, now, forced to do what somebody who never had an eating disorder is doing all the time: face my feelings, live through them, even if it makes me uncomfortable.
Food, for me, may never again be anything but what my body needs to be nourished. It isn´t a cure-all for bad feelings. And it isn´t a replacement for those elusive other things I might want from life. Things like being loved, or being comforted, or even just taking a break when my energy is running low.
Whenever I feel like digging into that vat of ice cream, or doing something similarly stupid, I must now stop and look at what it is that set me off, and what I could do to deal with it that doesn´t involve eating.
Sometimes, that´s quite difficult. But I´m getting better at it, and that´s why I still hope that I may be normal-weighted again some day.
Julia
2012/03/05
Bowing down to work
Some things never occur to you until long after they happened. Case in point, while I was at my top weight it never occurred to me how much my weight had reduced my ability to bend over. I just had gotten into the habit of going down on my knees if any kind of work had to be done that involved picking things up from the floor, or working close to it. The reason for that was, of course, my protruding stomach that effectively squeezed off my breath had I tried to bend over instead, but the avoidance maneuvre of kneeling down had become so automatic that I didn´t even think about it any more.
Over the weekend, we´ve been visiting MIL who has a problem with moss that keeps growing on her tiled patio due to high humidity from a nearby river. After a relatively mild winter, it was time again for some scraping. The last time I did that, I went down on all fours, and ruined a pair of pants in the process because that green stuff gives you some very tenacious discolorations on your knees. This time, I took the scraper- bent forwards and scraped the stuff off, never touching knee to ground. Only when I finished did I realize that I had done anything differently than before.
It´s the little things like that which make it worth recondensing the excess weight.
Bending over to pick up something. Sitting down in an armchair without being afraid of having it wedged to my bottom when getting up again. Sitting down on any chair without worrying about whether it will collapse.
For far too long, these were things I had resigned myself to being incapable of.
In my experience, there are so many things that I couldn´t do any more with my fat body, and which I can do again after recondensing the greater part of my excess weight, that I think that people who claim that there is no difference between being fat and being slim must be where I was. Up a river in Egypt, big time.
The thing being that even if I was in denial about how many things I couldn´t do any more, the limitations my body´s shape imposed on me didn´t disappear. I was, for all practical purposes, handicapped. Trying to find ways to work around the handicap was not changing the fact that I did, by doing so, not make it go away.
The most important thing for me was not giving up the hope of finding a way to recondense my extra pounds. For me, it was cutting out carbs and shrinking portion sizes that did the trick. For somebody else, it may be counting points, or whatever.
While I, as a now almost former fatty who did hear it all over the years, do think that shaming people because of their weight, or discriminating against them because of the shape of their bodies, is dead wrong, I still believe that encouraging them to find out a sustainable-for-them way of getting to a more functional body shape isn´t the same thing as discriminating against them. A paraplegic, or a blind person, do generally not have the chance of doing something to make their handicap go away. We fatties, on the other hand, have a chance at making our physical situation better. Since there is, in my experience, not a one-fits-all solution that would allow each of us to take that chance, it´s up to each of us to be mindful about our bodies, experiment with different possibilities, and find the one that works for our bodies.
What everybody who wants to lose weight has to remember is that slower can be better. When I finally started to lose weight, one of my bigger fears was that I´d end up with my skin being too big for my body, necessitating cosmetic surgery. I am, after all, not so young any more that I could trust my skin to shrink back along with my weight. I´m glad to find myself, after losing, on average, half a pound a week for a total of over sixty pounds, without any turkey neck or excess skin folds. I´m certain the protein supplements I use helped there, too.
Finding out what works for you, and sticking to it.
It´s working for me, and it just may work for you. Whatever your shape.
Julia
Over the weekend, we´ve been visiting MIL who has a problem with moss that keeps growing on her tiled patio due to high humidity from a nearby river. After a relatively mild winter, it was time again for some scraping. The last time I did that, I went down on all fours, and ruined a pair of pants in the process because that green stuff gives you some very tenacious discolorations on your knees. This time, I took the scraper- bent forwards and scraped the stuff off, never touching knee to ground. Only when I finished did I realize that I had done anything differently than before.
It´s the little things like that which make it worth recondensing the excess weight.
Bending over to pick up something. Sitting down in an armchair without being afraid of having it wedged to my bottom when getting up again. Sitting down on any chair without worrying about whether it will collapse.
For far too long, these were things I had resigned myself to being incapable of.
In my experience, there are so many things that I couldn´t do any more with my fat body, and which I can do again after recondensing the greater part of my excess weight, that I think that people who claim that there is no difference between being fat and being slim must be where I was. Up a river in Egypt, big time.
The thing being that even if I was in denial about how many things I couldn´t do any more, the limitations my body´s shape imposed on me didn´t disappear. I was, for all practical purposes, handicapped. Trying to find ways to work around the handicap was not changing the fact that I did, by doing so, not make it go away.
The most important thing for me was not giving up the hope of finding a way to recondense my extra pounds. For me, it was cutting out carbs and shrinking portion sizes that did the trick. For somebody else, it may be counting points, or whatever.
While I, as a now almost former fatty who did hear it all over the years, do think that shaming people because of their weight, or discriminating against them because of the shape of their bodies, is dead wrong, I still believe that encouraging them to find out a sustainable-for-them way of getting to a more functional body shape isn´t the same thing as discriminating against them. A paraplegic, or a blind person, do generally not have the chance of doing something to make their handicap go away. We fatties, on the other hand, have a chance at making our physical situation better. Since there is, in my experience, not a one-fits-all solution that would allow each of us to take that chance, it´s up to each of us to be mindful about our bodies, experiment with different possibilities, and find the one that works for our bodies.
What everybody who wants to lose weight has to remember is that slower can be better. When I finally started to lose weight, one of my bigger fears was that I´d end up with my skin being too big for my body, necessitating cosmetic surgery. I am, after all, not so young any more that I could trust my skin to shrink back along with my weight. I´m glad to find myself, after losing, on average, half a pound a week for a total of over sixty pounds, without any turkey neck or excess skin folds. I´m certain the protein supplements I use helped there, too.
Finding out what works for you, and sticking to it.
It´s working for me, and it just may work for you. Whatever your shape.
Julia
2012/03/01
One-year blogoversary!
One year ago, to the day, the first post of this blog was published. I wasn´t, at that time, too certain of where it was headed, thinking that it would mostly be a weight-loss blog, a way of making myself publicly accountable for what I ate. What it has, after a year, turned out to be is a place for me to write about excess stuff as well as about excess pounds. Writing things out for everyone out there to read has been leading me to more than one insight that might have been longer coming without my having to spell it out in plain English.
I keep being surprised whenever I look at that map Blogger has where you can see where your readers come from. Having visitors from so many countries makes me feel more than a bit humbled.
For the regular readers, thanks for sharing this journey with me! And for the lurkers- why don´t you write a comment to tell me more about you? I´m curious-did I say that already ?
And now on to the next year!
Julia
I keep being surprised whenever I look at that map Blogger has where you can see where your readers come from. Having visitors from so many countries makes me feel more than a bit humbled.
For the regular readers, thanks for sharing this journey with me! And for the lurkers- why don´t you write a comment to tell me more about you? I´m curious-did I say that already ?
And now on to the next year!
Julia
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