Skinny Jeans

I bought a new pair of jeans today in size 34/34 from Bluenotes, a store I haven't been into since high school (a somewhat depressing 14 years ago).

A couple of observations:
1. The cool kids get way shittier service in these stores than we plus-sized yuppies have come to expect.
2. Now that I can finally fit into these stores, I'm way to freaking old to shop there.

Nevertheless, I plan on making a fool of myself wearing teenage clothing until the novelty wears off. Better late than never.

While I am happy about reaching this milestone of shopping at a "normal" store, I'm also confused. My memory may have blocked out some of the details due to the trauma of the experience, but I'm pretty sure I remember trying to squeeze my high school ass into the biggest pair of jeans in the store (a size 13) and not being able to. This marked the beginning of my approximately 15 year exile into the wilderness of plus sized stores. Problem is, I'm pretty sure my high school ass was smaller than the early 30's one I have now. So, is this another sign of the obesity crisis? Are my 34 jeans really 38's? Is this where those chubby teenagers with all the ass crack showing have been getting their jeans?

And oh yeah, I am now at 203.4 lbs.

Back

Just because I've dropped out of the blog-o-sphere doesn't mean things have been off the rails - at least not the whole time anyway.

The weight is still coming off - currently I'm at 204.8 lbs.

The weight issue has been eclipsed of late by a back problem which has been causing severe pain and limitation to my ability to get around. I was even off work for a few weeks and I'm now back part-time.

Prior to that, work was so crapping busy and overwhelming that I lost the ability to do anything except obsess, worry and dream about it. This kind of commitment to anxiety and compulsion doesn't leave a lot of time for blogging.

I've been thinking lately about trying to recapture some of the things I used to enjoy when I was more myself. One of them was writing. As is true of a lot of things in my life, my writing has fallen victim to that severe internal clever critic that just won't stand for the kind of crap in the above paragraphs. But I'm going to try and turn that voice off and just bang it out, damn it. And to hell with it.

So I hope I will be back here more often, losing weight, bitching and moaning, and having some fun while I'm at it. Hope to see you around.

Wrong Direction

The scale went up .8 last Saturday -- I was actually surprised by this, but when I look back, I think I was kidding myself that I was doing well. I ate some healthy foods, but also some not so healthy foods. So I've got the healthy foods added in -- now for the much tricker "taking the unhealthy foods out" part :)

I read in Dietgirl's book something about weight loss being the cumulative affect of small decisions over time (put much more eloquently of course) and I've been keeping that in mind this week. Hopefully the cumulative affect will be a loss, but if it's not, I'm not going anywhere.

The Bleak Mid-Winter

First the weigh in news: .4 down. Kind of underwhelming, but really not bad considering I ate out almost every day last week. So many January birthdays, so little will power.

And now the weather: cold, cold, cold. As in, feels like -46 C with windchill cold. Somehow every year I seem to forget that winter does not in fact end with the holidays and I find it really annoying when it has the nerve to continue on blithely through January and February, getting worse all the time. I'm done with you, winter! Didn't you get the memo?

When its really cold all my motivation to exercise goes out the window. It seems contrary to common sense to expend calories when its only down to the whim of the furnace gods that I'm not shivering under 10 blankets, relying on those last few cookies to see me through until I'm rescued. And the thought of SWIMMING, my usual cardio, is just ridiculous.

And on top of all that, we didn't go grocery shopping before the cold snap set in and I can't imagine getting up the nerve to go grocery shopping in this.

So what has this taught me? Planning is the key. I SHOULD have thought ahead and gone grocery shopping before Sunday. I SHOULD have a store of frozen and canned foods that I use when a team of dogs couldn't drag me to the grocery store on a sled. And I need to have a go-to exercise option, like DVD's or an inside bike, to use when the swimming isn't happening. And I need to be PATIENT when my best laid plans go awry.

Slow and Steady

The votes have been counted and I'm now sitting at 215.6. Followed it up with a freezing (like -18 C freezing) walk for about a half hour (this was all we could manage without losing some appendages to frost bite).

I also went on a trip through WW memberships books past and I can report that since my first trip to WW in November 2004 I'm down 40 lbs. An average of about 13 lbs per year or about 1 lb per month. Attention hares -- turtle sighted plodding along behind you! If I keep it up, 2009 should just about see me under 200. It is so contrary to my nature to be patient for anything so perhaps that is another of the many lessons I'm learning through all this.

Right then

I go to Weight Watchers - I don't actually follow the program, mind you, I just go. I have a couple of friends that I go and have coffee with after, one of whom has lost over 100 lbs, and it keeps me on track and motivated for the week (sometimes). Last week was the first time I've actually gone since before Christmas, and the results weren't too bad considering - 216 point something. Come to think of it, it could have been point 8 but still, it's the number in front that matters, right?

Tomorrow is WW day again -- time to see how things have gone this week. I think I've run a pretty good campaign, but we'll have to see what the voters have to say. I haven't exactly got the "exercise every day" part down yet, but the eating has been quite healthy. I have actually been eating more, but healthier and with half an eye to the actual nutritional content. I have certainly not been hungry. Tonight I actually planned a meal to eat before arriving at a restaurant, and when I got there, ate that meal. Wowzers. This is big stuff, people.

Wish me luck tomorrow - the scale isn't everything, but sometimes I need a bit of a motivational push to get things rocking.

A New Start

My New Year's start has gotten off rather slowly. I slept in late yesterday due to staying up until 2:00 a.m. reading and didn't make it to Saturday morning Weight Watchers. I can't say this was entirely accidental, I was more than happy to have an excuse to put off facing the numbers for another week. Then I decided to just weigh myself at home today and not put it off any longer, but those good intentions were foiled by the "Low Battery" reading on my scale. Before it konked out it had climbed to about 220 -- let's just hope it was going to stop there, shall we? That wouldn't be so bad, given the kind of serious bad eating I've been doing lately. Even this half-assed weigh-in has made me feel a bit more on track and accountable. I can feel the resolve and energy starting to creep back and the New Year's excitement finally making itself shown. I will go swimming this afternoon and try to keep it rolling through the week.