My body, weight loss and other things that make me crazy
So, a couple of years back, I lost about 60 pounds. It was a lot of very gratifying, very hard work and I was very proud of myself.
And then I got stuck. I plateaued at about 40 pounds from my goal. I looked and felt better than I had in years, but I was nowhere near my ultimate goal. With my doctor's prohibition against high-impact exercise, I was kind of screwed, because the high-impact stuff is what I was really loving: running and Jazzercise. Now, you can do Jazzercise as a low-impact thing, but I always find myself feeling restrained and like I'm not working as hard as I want to. Other ideas were suggested--swimming, urban skiing. But none of them appealed. Bicycling was suggested; I even have a bike--but it's not proportioned properly for me and isn't really comfortable to ride, so there it sits in my storage unit gathering dust (about which, let me tell you, I actually feel a great deal of guilt).
I quit Weight Watchers about a year ago after a year of being plateaued and being frustrated to tears by it. Despite having lost two thirds of my total--and despite having maintained that loss--I felt like a failure. In the process, I've gained back about 25 pounds. My body feels terrible, my clothes feel terrible, and I think I look pretty terrible. This prompted me to buy a scale and to try to get back on the goddamn horse. There's a particular milestone that I'm approaching. At that milestone, I've placed myself, like Gandalf, saying, "You shall not pass." And I won't. I can't.
We've got this thing at work, the Summer Games, where we organize into teams and try to walk as many steps in 6 weeks as possible. That means strapping on my pedometer every day and trying to bump myself up past 10,000 steps per day. In the games, if you exceed a certain average number of steps, you start earning discounts on your heath benefits. I've earned two-thirds of the full benefit so far. Last year, I earned the complete benefit. I'm hoping that with my effort this week and weekend, I'll succeed in earning the whole benefit. It has the added fillip of getting me moving more.
Now I've got to get my food into shape. I've been using MyFitnessPal on my iPhone to track my food, though not as vigilantly as I could. I need to get better about that. I also need to read through all my WW materials again and try to refresh myself on the food balance that helped me so successfully a couple of years ago. I don't want to go back to where I started when I first started with Weight Watchers. I can't go back there. I looked pretty terrible and I didn't realize how bad I felt until I didn't feel that way any more. That way lies . . . well, frankly, death, given my family's medical history, and I can't do that to myself. I have way too much to live for.
And I'd never hear the end of it from Sophie and Zeke.
And then I got stuck. I plateaued at about 40 pounds from my goal. I looked and felt better than I had in years, but I was nowhere near my ultimate goal. With my doctor's prohibition against high-impact exercise, I was kind of screwed, because the high-impact stuff is what I was really loving: running and Jazzercise. Now, you can do Jazzercise as a low-impact thing, but I always find myself feeling restrained and like I'm not working as hard as I want to. Other ideas were suggested--swimming, urban skiing. But none of them appealed. Bicycling was suggested; I even have a bike--but it's not proportioned properly for me and isn't really comfortable to ride, so there it sits in my storage unit gathering dust (about which, let me tell you, I actually feel a great deal of guilt).
I quit Weight Watchers about a year ago after a year of being plateaued and being frustrated to tears by it. Despite having lost two thirds of my total--and despite having maintained that loss--I felt like a failure. In the process, I've gained back about 25 pounds. My body feels terrible, my clothes feel terrible, and I think I look pretty terrible. This prompted me to buy a scale and to try to get back on the goddamn horse. There's a particular milestone that I'm approaching. At that milestone, I've placed myself, like Gandalf, saying, "You shall not pass." And I won't. I can't.
We've got this thing at work, the Summer Games, where we organize into teams and try to walk as many steps in 6 weeks as possible. That means strapping on my pedometer every day and trying to bump myself up past 10,000 steps per day. In the games, if you exceed a certain average number of steps, you start earning discounts on your heath benefits. I've earned two-thirds of the full benefit so far. Last year, I earned the complete benefit. I'm hoping that with my effort this week and weekend, I'll succeed in earning the whole benefit. It has the added fillip of getting me moving more.
Now I've got to get my food into shape. I've been using MyFitnessPal on my iPhone to track my food, though not as vigilantly as I could. I need to get better about that. I also need to read through all my WW materials again and try to refresh myself on the food balance that helped me so successfully a couple of years ago. I don't want to go back to where I started when I first started with Weight Watchers. I can't go back there. I looked pretty terrible and I didn't realize how bad I felt until I didn't feel that way any more. That way lies . . . well, frankly, death, given my family's medical history, and I can't do that to myself. I have way too much to live for.
And I'd never hear the end of it from Sophie and Zeke.