So, this is Day 5 of my diet. I took a little detour last night at a dinner out with friends. We had Tapas and I'll be darned if I could remotely count the points. Probably some obscene amount. I drank water and stopped eating when I was sated--which, I've learned, is not the same thing as feeling full. (As it turns out, part of my neurosis is that I don't like to FEEL full. When I do, I am miserable and consider ways in which I could NOT feel full rather immediately. I'm sure this is a leftover from my eating disorder days, but it's not healthy and that's a post for a different blog.)
Anyway.
I weighed myself on Day 3 and was up two pounds. I KNOW about weighing myself and weight fluctuation and how it's easy enough to gain and lose two pounds over the course of an hour and why I shouldn't weigh myself more than once a week. Don't write to tell me because I KNOW. I KNOW. And frankly, I didn't even flinch. Just sighed and consigned it to the craptastic life of a dieter. I mean, I've gone to bed hungry every single night (except Tapas night) and so NATURALLY I would gain two pounds.
No, seriously, it didn't make me flinch because when you're trying to lose 35 pounds, two pounds up or down just doesn't mean very much.
It's weird: I think my attitude is scaring people. I am normally a very enthusiastic person. (I am on a new Home Organization bender at the moment and when I announced the day's activities toward this end, my children and several pets kind of...well...cowered in the corner.) Everyone wants me to be all excited and gung ho about dieting and exercising. I'm just SO not there. I'm in the "slogging through this thing, hoping if I do it while ignoring it at other times, I won't lose my mind and eat my weight in cheese" mindset. I want to forget all about it, in between eating and exercising. (Well, theoretically exercising since I haven't really started that aspect yet, except for unwilling walks with our dogs.)
In an odd way, the fact that my attitude is terrible and fatalistic is the most hopeful sign yet that I'm going to do this thing. Normally, I get all excited and create spreadsheets and weigh myself at exactly the same time three times per day and write endlessly about how wonderful life is going to be when I am thin again--how I'll get a book deal and be on Oprah and the world will love me in my size six jeans. So, I keep that up for about a week and then--oh, look! something shiny! --I'm on to something else.
This time, I am grinding it out. I may never be a size six again. I may never be on Oprah or get a book deal. But neither am I quitting. Failure is not an option because I'm not freaking going to quit. I hate it. I hate it every single day. But I am not quitting because remaining this unhappy in my skin is also no longer an option.
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I hear you. I finally realized that I was not going to be happy one way orthe other so I might as well get it together and start the plan.
ReplyDeleteAll I can say to you is this - no one will even notice when I lose 35 pounds, I have so much to lose and I have never and will never be a size 6. It is all relative and I cheer your progress and understand your apin and irritation at having to deal with it.
I cheer you on!!!
Susan, our friend Gerri set out to lose 100 pounds at the same time that Barb and I each set out to lose about 35, and she has made the most amazing progress of any of us. You'll be surprised what people notice when you lose 35 pounds--and you'll be surprised how much closer the next milestone looks when you get that far. And...you know...we'll notice, and celebrate with you, if you keep us posted.
ReplyDeleteBarb, I started out logging meals, counting calories, fat grams, keeping track, blah blah blah. And yes, my spreadsheet was a thing of beauty - fat and calories calculated for each meal and snack, then the total at the end of the day, everything color-coded with headings . . .
ReplyDeleteYeah, that didn't last.
While it's been slow, I'm trying to go about this in a civilized way - I won't make my family miserable because I want to fit into my skinny jeans.
I think, rather than thinking "diet" (ACK), or even "skinny jeans" I'm better off thinking "lifestyle." Rather than going to a gym and waste all that time doing gym things, I'll walk the dog (into the ground). I'm trying to find acceptable "lighter" substitutes for the cheese and butter that I love so much. Well, mostly, I just try to limit that - there's really no acceptable substitute for butter.
I figure I didn't get this fat overnight, and I didn't work at it. It was a gradual lifestyle change, and that's how I'm going to get back to where I want to be.