Charms: 40lbs, 45lbs, and Half Marathon

My latest charms arrived in the mail faster than I expected! The replacement "BMI" butterfly is there along with a few more:



As usual, these have meanings, too:

• Turtle (40 lbs): Slow and steady wins the race. Though it might seem like it's taking forever, I'm still moving forward!
• Ribbon (half-marathon): A special charm for accomplishing this momentous feat.
• Yin and Yang (45 lbs): Balance in all things. There are times when it's easy, but there's also times when it's hard. Both are needed to learn from the other.

My bracelet is getting close to being full. There's only five blank links left!

Girly little bites

I've never had a stranger comment on my food choices before. That is, until last night. My husband and I went to a friend's birthday celebration. I did pretty good at dinner and even mentally prepared myself for cake. When the cake came, I declined saying I would only take a bite from my husband's plate. And when I finally got around to taking said bite, a guy sitting next to my husband started rudely going on to me about how I was taking a "girly little bite" and maybe I should just go get my own piece of cake. WTF???

First of all, it's one of those prearranged things with my husband and I. He'll often let me take a little bite of whatever he's having so that I don't feel deprived. Second of all, it's no business of anyone else if I want to take a small bite. So, [insert rude gesture here], piss off! I'll have my "girly little bite" if I want to AND I'll count it as an NSV.

The one test I can't wait to take

I went to my doctor's this afternoon for my annual checkup. I've always hated checkups. Especially the weigh-in part of it which I always managed to block out thanks to a habit of closing my ears and humming "la la la" to myself. But this time, I proudly stepped on the scale and didn't cringe once. In fact, I had to resist striking a John Travolta pose.

When the doctor finally came in to see me, the first thing she said was "Wow, you look GREAT!" And all through the rest of the checkup she kept complimenting me* and asking me things like if I've gone shopping yet, what my ultimate goal was, and so on. When she asked if I was still on Weight Watchers and I told her I was, she did a little dance in her chair, grinned and said that she always loved hearing success stories like mine. Success stories! Like mine! Eee!

It was so nice to go to an appointment and be showered with praise instead of being gently remonstrated about my weight :)

At the end of the appointment, she looked at me and said, "Let's do your cholesterol! I'm so excited to see how much it's improved!" As much as I hate needles, I'm excited, too! At my highest weight, my cholesterol was verging on being too high. I remember thinking at the time that I was too young to have high cholesterol and that it was the sort of thing that only happened to my folks. Well, no. I wasn't too young. My weight was to blame. But now, I've lost over 50lbs since my last blood test and I'm hoping that means the cholesterol has gone down.

Bring on the 10-hour fast and the nurse with the pointy thing!

*John Travolta pose*


*Tip: compliments during a pelvic exam do not take your mind off of things happening "down there" as much as you would hope they would.

Charms: BMI and 35lbs

Sorry it's taken so long to post this, but better late than never! Here's a photo of two charms I earned a couple of months ago:



As with my other charms, these have meanings as well:

• Butterfly (BMI of 29.9): With this BMI, I'm no longer classified as "clinically obese." Therefore, the butterfly is a fitting symbol of transformation. I'm emerging again, healthier than before.
  
• Watering Can (35 lbs): Tending your body is like tending a garden. With water (lots of water), the proper nutrients, and love, it will flourish.

I owe myself a few more charms for other achievements and have gone ahead and ordered them. I'm actually replacing the butterfly charm pictured above because I really don't like it. It's too big and doesn't really go with the other charms. I think maybe it's part of the reason why I haven't been ordering charms or even wearing my bracelet. So, out it goes! I'll be replacing it with another butterfly – one that isn't so big!

The recurrent dream

About once a month, I have a dream with a recurrent theme - namely finding myself having to go back to a job I loathed. It's always a great relief to wake and find that it was just a dream and that I hadn't totally lost my senses. However, when I got larger, these dreams changed. Not only was I there, tail-between-my-legs forced back to a dead-end job, but I was embarrassed to be seen by my old coworkers as having become fat. It's hard to shake off that sort of dream because, though I can reassure myself that I'd never work that job again, weight does not disappear when you regain consciousness. Funny how that works.

Last night, I had the dream again. This time it was a job I hadn't worked at for a good ten years or more. But this time in my dream, I wasn't actually working there. I was visiting. And I was distinctly not embarrassed to be seen by my coworkers. I remember thinking "I can hold my head up now." I didn't mind that I still had a few more pounds to shed. I was proud of myself and happy to see my coworkers and be seen by them in turn.

Now, I don't kid myself that this means the end to these sorts of dreams. But I am hoping my weight isn't going to be featured in them anymore. It was an awesome feeling not to be embarrassed by my body anymore :)

Thirty-nineth Weigh-in

I didn't deserve it, but there it is. I'm down 1.8 lbs this week. Well...maybe I deserved it a little. I've been pretty hard on myself this last week – not only did I not feed myself well, but I also beat myself up pretty badly about it.

However, in spite of it all, I did manage to pull myself out of it. I could've let the whole week go. I wanted to let the whole week go. It would've been easy to say "well, you blew this week, let's wait to start over next week." But I didn't give into that...and so...perhaps...a little credit is deserved along with a good stern talking to. I almost feel like a teenager whose spectacularly bad decision (let's use mom's credit card to go to Vegas for the weekend!) ended better than it should have – with a "thank goodness you're safe" from mom and a year's worth of hard chores.

Though I no longer live with mom, I have been served a punishment of sorts. My loss this week puts me into the 150s (yay!) but it also means I've lost a daily allowance point (awwww, moooom!). Normally losing a point is a celebration, but I've been getting less excited about it. Whoohoo, I get to eat less!

My loss also means that I've lost another 5lbs. I received a star at my meeting and now I'm shopping for new charms for my bracelet. I never actually got around to buying a charm for my last five pounds, so I'm rectifying that. Maybe by the time they arrive, I'll feel a little more deserving of the latest charm.

Lastly, thanks very much for everyone's kind words of support. You're absolutely right. If this was supposed to be easy, we'd all be on the beach by now sipping margaritas in our scanty polka-dot bikinis :)

Thirty-eighth Weigh-in

I've come out from under my rock to finally post my last weigh-in. There's no two ways about it, I'm embarrassed. I've decided to post it and get it over with despite how sheepish I might feel. I'm up again, another .4 lbs. I know it's just a wee amount, but then I look over the last few months and it's distinctly becoming a trend.

I know I can certainly explain it away to my heart's content – work has been busy/stressful, I'm back on birth control meds, it was that time of the month, etc., etc. – but excuses only cut it so far when you're not really following the plan. I did it before when things were rough, why not now?

This week hasn't been any better. There's been one Halloween festivity after another. I even paid for it dearly the morning after a night of icing/eating Halloween cupcakes with friends. My stomach was in such knots that I took the day off work. Though that wasn't fun at all, I still ate badly on Halloween itself. Needless to say, I'm expecting another gain tomorrow.

So, what to do? I am reminded of a quote from my favourite movie...

When a job went wrong, you went back to the beginning.”
– Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

And that's what I'm going to do. Back to the beginning with me! Menu plans, tracking every morsel into my mouth, drinking water and exercising. All the good things that got me to where I am today. Because, despite my excesses this week and my hit-and-miss attitude of the last few months, I've still lost over 40lbs and should never lose sight of that.