I’ve finally lost 50 pounds.  Slightly bruised from falling off the wagon, I climbed back on with great results.  I’ve been gaining and losing the same 7 or so pounds over the last month, but I’m moving in the right direction now.

Along with the 50 pound mark, I’m back under 300.  It’s been about three years since I was this weight, and it feels good.  I bought a new pair of jeans the other day, and now I’m questioning whether I should have gone down another size.  Regardless, they won’t look quite as baggy as the jeans I wore at 350 pounds!

I’ve been chugging away with this new life for the last 29 weeks, and though my goal was to lose 2 pounds a week, I am completely satifsfied with my progress.  I know that going slow makes weight loss last, and I welcome the setbacks that teach me I can come back from them.  There will come a point when I’m going to have to simply maintain my weight, and I think these setbacks will help me with that.  Otherwise, there wouldn’t be much keeping me from saying, “Okay, I reached my goal and now I don’t have to try any more.”

I’m not even that worried about the holidays.  I know that I can have a day or two where I go a little crazy (not bingeing crazy, but it’s Thanksgiving crazy) and go back to being healthy after that.  After all, it’s what a skinny girl would do, right?

Lo:

Ok ladies, I am stepping up my game.  There was some discussion last week about weighing, and whether it should be done daily, weekly, or even less. Well, from my experience, weigh-ins are an incredible motivator to stay on track…as long as they are not viewed as the ONLY measurement of success. I haven’t been weighing daily, and have not weighed myself for a while so this might be an adjustment. However, I have to start from where I am… there is no way around that. For me, I like the daily routine of weighing. It is a great way for me to stay on top of the decisions I am making. Ok, so as far as accountability goes, I have decided to post a weekly weight of myself here on the blog, so the rest of you can follow along. Accountability is important with weight loss…so I figured this would be a great way to stay on top of my efforts. I think I am going to make Thursdays my weigh-in day, so we shall see how this goes!

What are you all doing to stay accountable?

Lo:

Ok, so it is time for a little background history on me and the dreaded exercise. Truth be told, I don’t dread exercise like many people. I actually enjoy it quite a bit. I had long stretches in high school and college when I would exercise 4-6 days per week. I would feel so great about myself, and it would help me in making healthier food choices (not quite sure how that works, but it does!). Earlier this year, I actually had an opportunity to work with a personal trainer at my local gym. It was incredibly challenging, but also incredibly informative. I learned about my body, and the importance of core training, and strength training (which I had never embraced before). However, like others, I have fallen out of the habit, and I feel like I have wronged the fitness world. Now I have grown flabby and lethargic. More than anything I want to pick up where I left off, but that is not quite how things work.  My apartment complex has a brand new, gorgeous 24-hour gym  with an elliptical, treadmills, and even weight machines… so I have literally NO excuse not to go. My hesitation isn’t with the exercise itself, but with my self-consciousness with my body while it is moving. I don’t like the idea of people seeing me exercise, like it is some sin for a big person to try to work out.  So, ok ok ok, where is this going. Basically, one of my current goals is to be “active” for 30 minutes, three times per week. This isn’t too hard, because I am walking my dogs daily…just not for that long. Now I am going to push a little farther, and make one of those three activities a gym workout. I think this might be good for me, and I can even go before school when nobody is there. I will let you know how this goes.

Very short-term goal

• Within the next week, go to the gym one timeJ

Kate:

My weight loss journey this time around began with the knowledge that my brother is getting married next year.  In one year and one day, to be exact.  He’s getting married on the beach, and I knew I didn’t want to look like an errant whale in the wedding photos.  None of my family members would have thought of me this way, of course, but I would see nothing else in the photos, especially because my brother’s fiancée is a beautiful woman.

You see, I constantly compare myself to how other people look.  I think about how much better my life would be if I were as thin as that woman I passed on the sidewalk or that girl across from me on the bus.  I don’t want to be skinny.  I will never be skinny, but I want to be healthy looking.  I don’t want to pass store windows and wonder if that’s how everyone else sees me.  I don’t want people to avoid sitting next to me on the El because I take up a little of the seat next to me.  (Let me say that those seats are damn small, too!)

So, it’s one year and one day until my brother’s wedding, and I’ve lost 45 pounds.  I would like to lose another 75 in the next year.  I’m trying to have moderate goals so that they’re attainable.  I don’t intend to stop losing weight after my brother’s wedding, because I know I’ll still have some ways to go, but I want to look markedly better by then.  Of course, my head says 120 pounds in 18 months is incredible, but my heart wants me to be under 200 pounds by next year.

I just hope that if my heart gets disappointed, my head can console it.

And Lo, I think you’re right about accountability.  I have plenty of accountability to others, which is definitely what I need, but I’m not being accountable to myself right now.  My immediate goal is to begin taking myself to task over slip-ups that I justify in my head.  If I want to be successful, I can’t let myself get away with things.  That’s how this all started in the first place.

Lo:

Let me just start out by saying that I absolutely love the holiday season. I love the weather, the smells, the shopping, and the family that comes along with it. However, it is always the time of year that makes me wish I were somehow different or better than I am. I want to walk into each Christmas party and holiday event wearing a smaller size, and glowing with confidence. Unfortunately, I spend more time pondering my personal fantasy than actually acting on it. About this time every year, I have some absurd goal such as “lose 30 pounds by Christmas” or “drop four dress sizes by New Years.” However, this year I am going to approach things a little bit differently. I refuse to hinge my enjoyment of the holiday season on some arbitrary goals, so I am going to continue my slow & steady approach rather than set myself up for failure. So here are my healthy goals as we approach the holidays.

• Make sure I get at least 30 minutes of physical activity three times per week (starting small…)

• Continue working on journaling everything I eat ( haven’t mastered that goal yet)

• Recognize and continue my healthy accomplishments and healthy habits that I have established (healthy breakfast & lunch, no meal skipping)

Gertie:

There is an interesting article/blog post today in the NY Times about the usefulness of exercise when it comes to losing weight.

While I’m often limit my comment reading on major forums like the Times because it can make you hate the internet, if not all of humanity, the comments on this particular article are rather fascinating.  There are a lot of familiar voices from people who have struggled for years with diet and exercise, as well as others discussing the health benefits of staying active and fit beyond numbers on a scale.

What do you all think?

Gertie Stein:

Kate- I hear you.

Its been rough lately! How come some weeks can feel so empowered and living a healthier lifestyle seems like an inevitable future, and then others are a  crap shoot?

I got on the scale this morning and was not totally horrified by what I saw. Not great….but not as many steps back as I had feared given my life lately. As I went through my morning, I kept thinking of that number in my head every time I made a choice about what I would or wouldn’t eat (Halloween candy! Be damned!). It helped some….

I think I am a ‘weigh every day’ kind of girl. For now anyhow. I know a lot of sources discourage you from this–and I can definitely see how it could become an obsession if your not careful– but I find that it is a nice reminder every day why I am doing this….

Goals for this week:
- Make some healthy homemade soups to stock my fridge and freezer for the coming winter

- Pay attention to how much money I am spending on junk or fast food when I have alternatives at home (i.e. Starbucks, diet cokes, Subway….)

- Walk my dog every day that it is sunny. This is Chicago, after all, and I hear the dark, freezing whisper of winter already….

Kate:

I have fallen off the wagon.  Temporarily, but fully off.  I don’t know what’s happened to me, but my resolve and motivation are missing.  These past four days I’ve had no filter when it comes to food.  I eat whatever I want in whatever amount I want.

I feel sick to my stomach.  I don’t know why I allow myself to remain out of control when it doesn’t make me feel good.  I met with Kirsten at CLM yesterday and thought a weigh-in would keep me focused, but it didn’t.  Kirsten asked me if there was anything scary about losing weight.  I told her I couldn’t think of anything.  Maybe it’s subconscious.  I’m approaching the 50 pound mark and about to go under 300 pounds.

However, I’ve lost about as much weight as I did the first time I tried this, and the timeline is about the same.  Six months and 45 pounds seems to be where I get hung up.  I need to get over the hump.  Every day I have time, I fully intend to go to the gym.  Something happens though and I talk myself out of it.  Same goes with eating well.

It starts now.  I want to succeed more than I did last time.  I’m sick of feeling like a failure at this.  I know I can do it.  I have done it.  I need to do it again.

Gertie:

Folks, its been a whirlwind of a couple weeks. I’ve been caught in an endless mobius strip as the kids I work with began to get sick, then I got sick, then they got re-sick….and so on and so forth. Truth be told, none of us have actually come down with the dreaded H1N1, but we have had a heavy dose of runny noses, ugly coughs, and sore throats.

While being sick usually doesn’t make me want to eat much, being home with sick kids all day most certainly does. At home (at least, the work home, which has a fully stocked fridge and lots of kid foods that are packed with carbohydrates and other such danger zones), it is far too easy to take a bite of this here, a bite of that there, until you realized you were actually full three hours ago and you have conspicuous chocolate stains smeared across your cheek.

Not to mention, when my routine gets thrown off, I get thrown wayyyyy off and its often hard getting back in the swing of things. Things like going to the gym, sleeping, and making healthy food have to be factored into my daily plan and I have to be able to keep that plan going non-stop, otherwise I am far too talented at convincing myself to stray.

This week finally, Finally, FINALLY, all three kids seem to be healthy (enough) and are going to school. Please, for my sanity, cross your fingers and pray they stay there.

And I, in turn, promise to fill you in on all my gossip and non-sequiturs that have been missed in my absence…

SIDENOTE:
speaking of non-sequiturs…this is the example given by Wikipedia and I totally giggle every time I read it…..

Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Fish.

Kate:

Act like a skinny girl, and you’ll become a skinny girl.

I should get a bracelet that says WWSGD.