Friday, December 30, 2011

Requisite Emo New Year's Resolution Post

As I continue to hover within a couple pounds of the same weight I’ve been at for roughly five months now, I wonder if I’ve become too content with my current weight.  And more importantly, I can’t help but wonder if that’s such a bad thing.

I’m still anywhere between 25-40 pounds from my goal weight and I’m not set on any particular number- anywhere in that range would tuck me into the healthy weight bracket.  Although I feel like I’m pretty healthy at my current weight and I’m in as good of shape as I’ve been in since early college, I know I could be a bit healthier at goal, and I know I’d be happier with the way I look at goal.  I’m a vain bitch by nature.  But at the same time, I don’t have a lot of serious complaints where I’m at now.  Maybe that provides me with a bit less motivation to keep plugging away at WW, but maybe that’s not the worst thing in the world either.

In fairness, I should mention that I am very fortunate to never have been truly miserable with respect to my weight, even at my heaviest.  I was definitely less pleased with that aspect of my life 100 pounds ago, I didn’t like the way I looked or felt, and pictures became an increasing disaster.  But I still enjoyed my life and my weight didn’t severely take away from that.  However, looking back to my starting weight this time around, I also realized that my reasons for wanting and needing to lose weight were less superficial than they normally have been in the past, and definitely less superficial than they are now. 

Although I wasn’t experiencing any major health problems or at imminent risk of anything awful, I have to call a spade a spade and acknowledge the fact that I gained 114 pounds in 6 years and that is not healthy any way you slice it.  I was wearing sizes I had never seen before and my shopping options were becoming limited.  I remember sitting on a plane and realizing that there was not much seatbelt left and that if I gained more weight I’d need an extender.  I rarely worked out and walking multiple flights of stairs at a time was a chore.  I was increasingly experiencing acid reflux and indigestion symptoms and I had a solid year or so where I had this nagging cough and chest congestion with no particular cause that I imagine was at least somewhat weight/fitness-related.  That’s not to say that vanity wasn’t still a huge factor in wanting to lose weight.  There was no “lightbulb moment”, so to speak, but some unflattering pictures of me were at the forefront of my mind when I re-joined/re-committed to WW in February 2009. 

My point is that, silly as it sounds, I feel extremely lucky to be back to a point where my weight is mostly just a vanity issue once again.  My weight has always been up and down but up until 2005 or so it had never really been a major problem so much as a vanity-based annoyance.  Yet back in high school and early college I sometimes let my dissatisfaction with my appearance snowball my weight into more drama and irritation than it probably required.  It’s unfortunate that it took SO much weight gain to put things into perspective for me as far as what is truly important, but from here on out I will try not to take things for granted with my weight.  In other words, embracing the fact that vanity and wanting to look hotter in a bathing suit are pretty good fuckin problems to have in the scheme of things!

Anyway, I don’t know why I’ve been feeling so introspective about things lately- maybe it’s somewhat New Years resolution-related.  I hate resolutions and I sure-as-shit am not going to plan my year around losing x number of pounds, because that’s just inane.  But I’d like to continue losing weight while also continuing to develop a healthy outlook towards weight and life.  Last year I stopped weighing myself mid-week and have pretty much stuck to that faithfully for a year now.  I would like to take more steps in the direction of making my weight and health a priority while also NOT making it a major focus in my life.  I don’t want to know what I weigh on a daily basis just like I don’t want to spend a great deal of emotional energy based on where I’m at in my weight loss.  I like writing this blog and I want to continue living a (usually) healthy lifestyle, but I also don’t want WW and weight loss to be such a huge part of my life- surely my life is more interesting than that!

I hope to re-read this post periodically throughout the year to see how I’m doing.  I want to keep following WW but I hope to reach a point where I spend fewer hours a day thinking about it, and I will try to update about my mindset from here on out as much as I do about my weight and other shenanigans.  Reaching my goal weight without being where I want to be about it mentally first is just going to spiral me through ongoing dissatisfaction that won’t change no matter how low the scale gets.  So with that said, hope everyone has a wonderful New Year in which we can all achieve the resolutions we set out to accomplish.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Quick Pre-Holiday Check-In

Here I go again being the shittiest blogger ever!  I'm also still not doing much on the WW front, and my last 800 WIs have basically been: up, down, up, down, up, down. And so on.  All things considered I'm not terribly unhappy to only be a shade over my lowest weight as I haven't exactly been knocking shit out of the park this month, but hopefully in January we'll have some more downwardly progress.  My sister and I are going to Indianapolis for Super Bowl week so I need to be a flyass bitch for those parties!

I don't have much to report otherwise, but I am enjoying the crap out of the holiday season thus far and I hope everyone else is as well!  My roommates and I threw what I can only describe as a fabulously bangin holiday party a couple weeks ago, and since I'm really lazy about posting pictures I'm including a pic of me in my party dress here.  Yes, I exist in black and white.

my sister and I and some really freaky lighting

Anyway, I'll try to update a little more regularly but hopefully there will be some more regular weight loss to report as well.  Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!

Monday, December 5, 2011

December Shenanigans

I meticulously avoided posting after my post-Thanksgiving WI for a few days, but now that it’s been a few days and I’ve gotten my shit mostly back together I figured I’d update.  I gained 4.8 last WI which I *think* has been my highest gain this time around on WW, which is no easy feat as I’m coming up on 3 years on this go-round AND I think I bested my previous highest by a good pound or so.  I didn’t track and enjoyed every morsel of food I could get my paws on so a gain of some magnitude was expected and all I can do is move on to the next week.

So far this week I’ve been good, and I have about 4 WPs left with my next WI tomorrow.  After tonight I’ll have gotten to the gym 4 times and so I think it’s been a good bounce-back week.  I’m not asking to get rid of the whole 4.8 this week but I’m hoping to make a nice dent in it, at least.  This time of year is awesome but a bitch on the diet front, and so I’m cool with seeing minimal results for the next few weeks.

On a more positive note, I did have some good (albeit expensive) non-scale victories over the weekend.  On Saturday I went shoe-shopping with my roommates and I was mainly looking for boots.  I’ve always believed myself to be in possession of big old man calves that do not and will not fit into normal-person boots.  I haven’t boot-shopped in awhile, but I can remember in college when I was at least in the general vicinity of my current weight, knee-high boots would not make their way up my calves.  I don’t have enormous calf muscles but they’re big enough and I’m sure a lot of that has to do with gaining weight over the years and my legs having to work extra hard to carry the added weight.  Anyway, in case it’s not already totally obvious where this going… every pair of regular-sized boots I tried on fit spectacularly, the wide-calf ones I tried on were too big, and so I think my legs might finally have joined the normal-sized population after all.  I ended up buying 2 new pairs including some fabulous knee-high suede boots that I want to sleep with they’re so lovely, and my mood was jovial.

Second expensive NSV:  I went dress-shopping yesterday to find a new dress for our holiday party this weekend.  I wasn’t intending to spend a lot, but it’s funny what your wallet is suddenly inclined to do when you try on a wonderful dress in a size you haven’t seen since you were a freshman in college.  It fit and zipped without a problem, though it hugs the shit out of every inch of my torso and ass so you better believe I’ll be taking it easy on the mint M&Ms this week.  Or, I’ll say I’m going to do that and end up stuffing my face and wearing a tight-ass mothereffing dress on Saturday.  Either way, I was ecstatic, I love the dress, and I feel really good about things in the weight department, even if I did gain the equivalent of a small child last week.

Hopefully I will have some good news at WI tomorrow, though this coming week will be a tougher one so that will