My mood is much like the landscape these March days – gray and brown, monotone, flat. It’s that in-between season, not fully winter, certainly not spring. April will bring more of the same. We should expect some snowstorms, some bouts of beautiful weather. It’s an unpredictable time and it mirrors my unpredictable mood.
I’m thirteen weeks into my program. I haven’t lost thirteen pound. I am, however, closing in on a solid ten, and by solid I mean that I can count on the fickle scale registering a ten pound loss every time, not nine one week, eleven the next, eight the next, which is how its been going since the beginning of this month. So thirteen weeks of hard work adds up to about 10 pounds. It’s not great, it’s also not bad.
Ashley will be changing my program at the end of this week (Thank goodness) and now I understand how the same routine can become so boring. She also has me doing more cardio this week, which is good. I can feel the pounds melting off with the running more than I can with the weight lifting. I’m moving forwards, slowly, slowly and even though it’s hard and I wish I’d never made this so damn public, I’m glad I have because it’s that very thing that keeps me from quitting.
I’m noticing small changes in the way my clothes fit. I’m hoping by summer I will be down a size or two but I’m trying not to project into the future too much. I need to stay in the now, keep sweating it out and be grateful for the progress I’m making.
M
This Monday past I started weeping at the gym during one of my training sessions. It came like a wave and there was nothing I could do to stop it. The tears streamed down my ridiculously red face as my trainer stood aghast. It was, well…it was bad.
I’ve since had time to consider what the tears were all about and I figure it’s because loosing weight at 50 is not like loosing weight at 20, 30 or even 40. Like me, the pounds have become more stubborn. They are clinging to me like 30 year old adult children floating on the basement davenport, refusing to leave the nest. But more than that, I am not, I repeat NOT on the schedule I anticipated would be easy. One pound a week, I thought, would be a snap. At least at first. But, quite frankly it’s not and I’m behind and I’m mad at myself because I am doing everything right.
In fact when I monitored every solitary food item that passed my lips last week and dutifully wrote it all down --- ALL of it, every single grape and dollop of skim milk -- and the scales didn’t budge, I felt devastated. I also freaked out when the weight watcher leader told me I wasn’t eating ENOUGH food!! Then I got a parking ticket and spend the rest of the afternoon at a funeral ….It was that kind of a week.
If it wasn’t for this blog and my truly public commitment to health, I might quit. Instead, what I am going to do is modify my expectations. I’m still going to aim high but if I don’t loose a pound a week – say I only loose half a pound a week – I’m still losing, right? I’m still on the downward slope, my BMI is still dropping. But I am going to go a little easier on myself. Not food wise. Not exercise wise, but pound wise. I’m going to work towards overall fit and health – physical and psychological health -- and that means obsesses a little less about the numbers game.
More (or less of me) later, M
Life happens in the weight loss world. People take unexpected trips, holidays unfurl a bit earlier than expected, plans are hatched and acted upon and ones weight continues to drop while their careful exercise scheme stays firmly in place (and who said I wasn’t a fiction writer?)
Gentle readers, if you exist, I must tell you paragraph one is only half true. Yes, I’ve been away, and yes, I neglected my blog for almost two and a half weeks. Has my weight changed since my return from the inglorious Abacos where I imagined myself hauling lines with knotty forearms and swimming masterfully through the surf to dine on the sun soaked foredeck of our sailboat on freshly caught fish and lime juice?
Well, yes and no. My weight loss did not continue during my vacation but (here’s the good news) I have done something about that besides returning to the gym, browner and plumper.
If I am indeed in week ten of this one-pound a week odyssey, I am behind in my weight loss journey. I did not loose more then a few ounce while away. I also did not drink lime juice exclusively. An exquisite three-rum punch is to be found at any number of Tiki bars on the outer islands of the Bahamian archipelago. And yours truly has sampled them all. Have you heard of sweet potato fries? Say no more…
I am proud to confess I didn’t gain weight. But I didn’t loose weight. I just stayed the same. I am eight and a half pounds down according to a number of scales (the gym, my own bathroom, friend’s homes, houseware departments of large stores, produce scales in supermarkets --how much does my arm weight today? -- and my new favorite, baggage scales in large airports) and that’s what I was when I left.
Here is the difference. The good people at the gym who are assisting me in my fitness regime have all told me that toned muscles, which I’m definitely developing, are heavy beasts. They have also informed me that exercise is only 15 to 20% of the strip-down equation of successful weight loss. Food, that stuff I put in my mouth, is the other 80 to 85% of the calculation and portion control is what I have successfully avoided up until now.
Last Saturday morning, knowing full well that eight and a half pounds is not ten pounds no matter how you stretch it, and fully aware that I am behind in my weight loss goals, I joined Weight Watchers, the self help group for fatties who need to re-learn the basics of food consumption.
I have joined WW before. In fact, after the birth of my second child I lost a good 38 pounds on the program. To this day I don’t understand why I quit the program three pounds shy of my ideal weight.
Or maybe I do. I think, back then in my trembling 30s, I had a fear of success. I think the fat that surrounded my body affirmed my maternal state, shouted out to successful motherhood, and the hot curvy babe that almost emerged that one summer many moons ago, quickly became afraid of the attention her non-mothering body was attracting. All this is theory. All this is in the past.
Suffice it to say, I may now have the perfect combination. Less food (Weightwatchers)/More exercise (Korezone)! I can only hope this predictable combo plus my 50-year-old world be damned determination is the key to the 50 pound public declaration that sometimes threatens to choke me. So far, it looks good. Stay posted. I’m still on course for success. M
