First, a quick update:
1) I has job. It remains awesome. Yay for good job.
2) I has home. It is also awesome, featuring wood floors, a garage and right next door to the lovely riverside bike path, as well as being close enough to bike to work and a seriously good deal.
3) TE arrives soon!
…and now that I’m finally settled into my new place with boxes un boxed and furniture in their furnitury places and knowing the locations of the closest gas station and pizza parlor and second-hand dogfood emporium I thought “Hey, didn’t I used to write a blog?”
Sigh.
Something that I have written about many times in the last 6 months of living back in Hippyville has been my progress losing weight.
(what? You haven’t written anything about that in the last six months…)
Oh yes I have. I’ve written about it at least a couple of times, maybe more.
(seriously, you haven’t. I’m the one person left who’s continued to check this sorry location for updates and not a one has mentioned this. I’m really sure.)
I totally have written about it. I’ve written about all the various things I’ve been doing, and the foods I have or haven’t been eating, and about how I had to buy a second scale, even though I spent years never setting foot on scaley-things w/out being forced, because the scale at my parent’s house was off by at least 5 pounds, but in the GOOD direction so my Dad was (understandably) loathe to get it fixed or adjusted or whatever it is you do to make a scale tell the damned truth for once. I wrote about all of this. I wrote it all down.
I just never seemed to finish these posts, or post them. So you never got to read them. But wrote them I did.
Still, since the words never made it out of the file on my desktop called “UIL” to the big, bad interwebs I guess I should update you guys officially.
I lost weight!
As the year started I decided to do something official in the realm of food management. As I think I’ve mentioned before, my hugely finicky palette means I can’t do a true diet, as I would eat only about three things and, of course, starve. More than that I WON’T do a true diet because I believe when you do something that drastic you may lose the weight for a while, but you’ll gain it all right back as soon as you go back to eating normally. You can’t live the way. But I also knew that after over a year of exercising RELIGIOUSLY (and remember, I don’t do ANYTHING religiously, so that’s saying something!!) and yet moving not a pinch of pounds off of my huge ass I needed to try something new. And everybody kept telling me “you should count calories. Calorie counting is totally the way to go. Your calories – let me count them.” And then I discovered that there is an app for that (shock! Wonder! What are the odds? Can it be true?) which would help me count those calories all the time.
I set my goal on losing one pound per week. And I set my calorie intake to a tiny little 1460 each day. And I said my tearful goodbyes to pizza. And French fries. To oreos and waffles and anything that came on a bun. “Farewell, faithful friends,” I said, caressing their salty sides or creamy fillings. I told my beloved Pepsi that we could still see each other, but only occasionally. First it was lunch and dinner; then just lunch. Oh sure, I thought about Pepsi all the time, but I would be strong. STRONG.
To achieve this calorific goal I had to do some other things I’d always shunned. I learned to drink water. (shudder) Not boring, regular old water with only water flavors – this is a thing I cannot stand, and should be reserved for hosting fish and washing the car. But thanks to the invention of “powdery flavors to make water taste like non-water flavors” I was suddenly a water drinker. I was drinking water every day. I was drinking water at almost every meal! Cran-grape water and cran-pomegranate water and cran-lemonade water – these are now my closest friends. I have a lovely collection of huge water bottles that I take with me everywhere like one of those “fitness” people you see and hate walking down the street or biking in the rain.
I also became the expert on all things “low-calorie.” Now I can tell you, right off the top of my brain, that dill pickles and celery and lettuce all have so few calories as to almost not be counted at all. I can tell you that 53 pretzel sticks = 100 calories, and that sugar-free Jello and fudgicles make great desserts with tiny amounts of the bad things in them. My pantry is stocked with Pirate Booty and Pop-Chips and Oogie’s white cheddar popcorn because they’re all low-calorie ways to get a little salty snack. I’ve discovered wonders such as the thin buns and thin bagels that cut my carb calories to a manageable load; the 100-calorie bags of cookies and cheese-its and brownie-bites; the non-fat flavors of yogurt that sound so wonderfully decadent, like “Strawberry Shortcake” or “Triple Berry Torte but also ring in at a tiny 100-calorie number. Ask me any question about low-calorie foods. Go ahead, ask me! And then punch me in the stomach, I won’t feel a thing! Yes, I am the calorie-countingest calorie counter this side of Calorie-Countopia!
On top of the calorie counting, guaranteed (cough, cough, sputter, sputter) to drop a pound each week, I also took advantage of all the free time that being unemployed affords a person and I worked out. A LOT. I went for a 15-mile bike ride every single day. I took a pilates class for about two months, and after that was done I went to the dark side and signed up for kickboxing classes. Some days I did the bike ride and the kickboxing class on the same day. I called these days “sheetcake day” as so much exercise pretty much meant I could eat an entire sheetcake and still not exceed my daily calories, so many was I burning away. I also started doing these brutal toning exercises I found online that brought my hips and abs and big old butt into a reasonable size and shape. I sweated, and sweated, and then I sweated even more.
I took this goal really seriously, you guys. I felt like this was one of the few places that I really should be able to make a change, as opposed to the job and the home and all the other stuff I was desperately trying to achieve. This one was just in my hands, and all I needed to do was not. Drop. The. Ball. I was pretty damned obnoxious at parties, drinking my colorful waters instead of soda and eating my burgers bun-free and shunning desserts in favor of a couple of fudgeickles, thank you very much. In the past I would have looked at someone like me, putting my body size before my fun, and found me ridiculous. But not anymore. I was tired of being the big-but-funny (or smart) girl. I wanted to be both.
Two weeks ago I finally hit the goal I set for myself TWO YEARS AGO: I am down to 150 pounds. A total reduction of over 50 pounds in that time, over 30 of them lost in the last 6 months. When TE steps off that plane in about a week I honestly think he will take one look at me and decide to ditch his old girlfriend for this new hot chick! I’m proud of myself and what I’ve accomplished. And now I know it’s something I can do just so long as I really put my mind to it. I just need to focus; to really concen- ooh! shiny!
Sigh.
