Closer to Pretty

The thing with having a lot of weight to lose is that it isn't an instant gratification situation. Actually, for the first year/35 pounds only people who knew I was trying to lose weight ever commented on my success. In fact, only a few months ago a concerned co worker pulled me aside to talk about how much weight she had lost and to say, "I just wanted to let you know that I'm happy to talk to ANYONE who is thinking about gastric bypass."

I was pissed! I had worked so hard and was losing weight even if it was coming off slowly. I felt like she should recognize it or at least not bully me about surgical options, so I told her I'd pass it along if anyone asked.

It wasn't until recently when, as I began to approach my 50th pound, and bought new clothes in a size 18 to compliment my shrinking bod, that people really started to notice. It was exactly what I had thought I wanted. Every day, at least one person told me how much thinner or "better" I looked and my boss constantly told me how "proud" she was of me. (Her "pride" is another post by itself).

Now, I work with a lot of women, and if there's one thing I've learned over the last year of struggling with my weight, listening and reading other blogs, it's that most women, no matter what their size at least say they want to lose weight. We live in a figure obsessed culture, so I tried to accept compliments gracefully as they came.

But for some reason, I have difficulty making the same allowances for my family. I visited my mother this weekend, and found my grandparents chillin' their as usual. I was wearing an outfit that fits and so was barraged with compliments as soon as I came in. I was actually enjoying having my head expanded until my mother said, "between the braces and the weight loss, you'll be very pretty when you're all done." *Shit*

It reminded me of the time, about a year ago, when I'd been on my diet for a few months, and was talking to my dad about kids. I said that I'd like to have kids some day, but, as I have never even been on a date before, it seems like my chances of falling in love and starting a family are limited. He said, "I don't know. You're losing weight; maybe someone will ask you out when you get thin enough."

Both times I felt my stomach lurch. I felt angry and ashamed and very sad, I think because I was glimpsing what my parents really thought of me. Not pretty yet. Too fat to date, but getting there. I wanted to cry but felt confused. They were complimenting me, right? Then why do I feel like shit? Thinking about it makes my eyes sting with tears, even now.

The truth is, I'm losing weight in an attempt to avoid the diabetes that has claimed my parents. If I do meet someone when I'm thinner, will I ever really know whether he would have loved me now or last year? Should it matter? Is physical attraction all that matters for men?


I guess I'll have to wait until I'm a little closer to pretty to find out.

Everyone who knows me well, knows that I've been battling my weight my whole life. I've never known what it's like to be thin and I've had a serious yearning to find out for as long as I remember.

The trouble is that, through out my life, I would start a diet with an event in mind. I would want to lose weight by the end of summer vacation so I could wow all my classmates with my super hot new bod. Or I'd want to lose weight by Christmas to impress my extended family. As I became older and more goal oriented, I thought that it would be nice to lose all the weight I needed to lose by New Year's Eve. Or by the start of high school or college or grad school.

I think goals are great, but the problem is that they were seldom achievable. Thinking I could be capable of losing 50 pounds in the course of three months was short of realistic. Always the planner, I would lay out the number of pounds I needed to lose per day and week to achieve my goal. However, when week one came to a close and I wasn't 4.16 pounds lighter, I felt like a failure. I would decide that I would never lose 50 pounds, so why even try, and I would fall hopelessly off the wagon.

The kicker is, that when the next event began to loom, I would always say, "If only I had stuck to my diet, I would be where I wanted to be right now."

Now as the New Year is already looming ahead of me, I'm well aware that I need to lose about 1.75 pounds per week to get below 200 pounds by the time the ball drops. Given that information, standing on the scale in my Weight Watchers meeting and finding out that I had only lost .8 pounds should have sent me into a cookie eating spiral.

However, on the walk back to my office I had a sort of epiphany. Maybe I won't be down below 200 pounds on New Year's Eve, but if I continue doing what I'm doing now, I'll certainly be closer to it than I am today and closer still by New Year's Eve 2009! I'm the one who set the goal! Who cares if I fall a little short of it as long as I don't give up!!! I've got a lot of years left to live and every healthy choice I make brings me closer to living them the way I want to--even if it takes a lot longer than I want it to.

How do you fight strawberry shortcake?

I'll confess, I'm having some difficulty. Sometimes, I try to do this and it's effortless. The wonderful thing about that is that being on track tends to be a system that feeds itself. I feel in control and badass and confident, and that makes it easier to turn down pizza.

Right about the time I start to think that this is going to be easy, an event comes up--A birthday, party, vacation, fill in the blank--and I get off track. I make unwise choices. This wouldn't be so terrible if it wasn't for the fact that I then have a tough time convincing myself that it's a good idea to start counting points again. I usually restle with this for a week (though sometimes longer), than I get back on track and lose for a week, and then the cycle repeats.

The result is that my net weight stays about the same while I feel like I'm always on a diet. I need to get back on track for more than 2 days--UGGGG!

A bad week

This week was rough for me. I have my weigh-in tomorrow and I'm just hoping that I lost something--even just 1 pound. Why was it so rough? A combination of things. My mother's birthday was Thursday and Mother's Day was Sunday. I had final papers and presentations and exams to take care of. So I would say that it was a combination of environmental (I was surrounded by cake) and emotional(I was incredibly stressed out) factors.

I seriously considered not posting this week and avoiding my Weight Watchers meeting tomorrow. Then I realized how self-sabotaging that would be. This week wasn't that bad! Most days, I did a good job counting my points. I may have used flex points, but I wrote them down and held myself accountable. My worst day this week was still fifty times better than my best day during most days over the past six years. Just the fact that I knew enough to feel a little guilty about cake and ice cream says something about how far I've come.

I realized that if I avoided posting and attending my meetings, I would be establishing a very dangerous precedent for myself. I would be saying that it just didn't count when I didn't feel like doing what I was supposed to do. It would be like pretending that my actions didn't have any consequences.

So here it is. My pre weigh-in post. 100% present and accountable.

Not ready to be a poster child

As I've mentioned before, I'm in love with my pedometer. I wear it every single day, and I depend on it to encourage me to move. It never lets me down. Usually, pedometers suck. They're usually incredibly unreliable. You could walk 10 miles, and your pedometer will tell you that you've only take 875 steps, but the vibrations from riding in the car make your readout look like you just completed the Boston Marathon. Irritating!!!!

The one I've been using for the past year is actually very different. It measures very accurately, has a jogging strap so it doesn't fall off and can even record from a purse or pocket. Because I hate having anything digging into my muffin top, I often let it dangle upside down from the jogging strap (it measures upside down too! Cool, huh?).

Consequently, people in my office started asking me what I was wearing. I shared my enthusiasm. I also let people in my "active living" and "healthy eating" groups know about them. As a result of my unintentional saleswomanship, at least 30-40 people have purchased the model I have been using. Those people sang the pedometer's praises so loudly, that there is now a mini Omron pedometer-wearing sub culture at my university.

My university is really trying to promote wellness. To that end, they invite all full time faculty and staff to come to health-related presentations. That's the reason why on Friday a photographer showed up at my office door. She said that she heard that I was known for pedometer wearing (interesting thing to be "known" for) and that she was hoping to take my picture. It would be put into a PowerPoint presentation for one of the wellness presentations.

I paused to consider: My full body picture, blown up to about 3X bigger than life size, on a massive screen in front of a few hundred people. I was suddenly filled with terror. I didn't want to leave her hanging, but I definitely wasn't comfortable, so I had a coworker stand in.

My sister was completely ticked off when I told her about it. She said that it's a repeating pattern in my life that I step back from opportunities, especially opportunities for recognition. I disagreed whole-heartedly, but afterwords, I wondered, is it true?

Mental list:

I skipped my induction into the Jesuit Honor Society, I skipped my graduation ceremony for both my bachelors and masters, I "lost my voice" when I was supposed to sing on stage in high school, I decide against going for my PhD or joining the Peace Corps.

She's right. Most of the major decisions I have made in my life, I have at least subconsciously made with safety in mind. Whenever I consider doing something new, I also consider how weight will influence the way I am perceived and my ability to succeed. This was a very sad realization for me.

It's stupid to wait to live until I'm at my goal weight. True, I will gain confidence as I progress, but why hold off?

Nevertheless, I'm not ready to be a poster child just yet.

Low expectations and lower numbers on the scale

I'm always astonished when things work as advertised. I think this means that I have consistently low expectations. I'm hard to disappoint, but I can also come off as a total Eeyore.

I usually enter every new situation as a skeptic. I don't know if it's just more palatable to disbelief than to be fooled, but I can't help myself. The great thing is that I don't buy into the get thin quick infomercials that play on my TV at three o'clock in the morning. The bad thing is that my negative attitude can derail my weight loss efforts.

For the six months between October and late April, I kept gaining and losing the same five pounds. I never made any headway at all. In retrospect, I know that this is entirely due to the fact that I failed to make an prolonged organized effort. I would count points or calories one day and sort of do OK, but then the next day I'd go out for a burger, chili cheese fries and an ice cream sundae.

However, when I analyzed the data of my life, I ignored the gorging and thought to myself, "Gee, counting points just doesn't work for me anymore. I'll probably never go below 240." Duh.

I probably would have continued on this way forever if the university I work at didn't offer a ten week Weight Watchers at work. The other women in my office were awesome about it. They agreed to switch lunches with me. I signed up thinking, it won't work, but I might as well try. I should say that I felt completely unmotivated. My first meeting was April 23. I hoped on the shiny silver scale with discreet remote readout. I started off at 246.0.

Since then, I've stayed within my points every day and have written every last bite down. The first week, I lost 2.2 pounds, but I was still above 240, so I still believed I would stop losing soon. However, I got on my bathroom scale this weekend, and the readout said 235.5. Ever the skeptic, I got off and got back on. Still 235.5. Bitchin'!!!!

Hooray for exceeded expectations and hooray for convenient meeting locations and hooray for awesome coworkers!

The Stages of Change

My favorite blogger, PastaQueen, whose blog, Half of Me, continues to chronicle her successful struggle to lose over half of her body weight, has written a lot of things that have resonated with me. Most of the time, reading her blog is amusing, thought-provoking and awe-inspiring. Usually, what she writes makes me take a long hard look at myself.

I haven't kept up with PastaQueen along her entire journey. Actually, I just stumbled upon her blog last month and haven't been able to stop reading it yet. She posts nearly every day and has posted her jaw-dropping, rotating progress pictures that demonstrate a metamorphosis that is nothing short of amazing. However, while snazzy progress pics are inspiring, what really hooked me on her blog was her complete and fearless honesty throughout the process. Her false starts are well documented and her journey has not been a straight shot to success. (Which is good, because I might hate her if it was!!)


Psychologists indicate that humans almost rarely make or sustain entirely linear changes in their lives. Most of us don't just decide to give up donuts and pizza and then go another 50 years without ever calling Domino's. Rather, people tend to cycle through the stages of change which include precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance and relapse.

While in the precontemplation stage, an individual isn't even entertaining the idea of changing. He or she might be in denial. When a person enters the contemplation stage, he or she starts to consider the benefits and problems associated with a change and may begin to consider how he or she will make a change. In preparation a person may begin to make small changes to test the waters. In the action stage, an individual is taking real steps to change. Generally, people enter maintenance when they have remained in the action stage for an extended period of time, such as six months to a year. However, no matter how long someone has been in the maintenance stage, he or she is always a little vulnerable to relapse.

The stages of change are cyclical, and not everyone moves through every stage. I know this is a little like sitting in psych class, but knowing this information has real benefits to anyone trying to lose weight. It demonstrates that it's OK to not go right from precontemplation to action, or to go from action back to contemplation. It's all part of the process.

That's how I view my journey. This time last year I was doing well, but for the past six months, I've been maintaining. Bummer, but not the end of the world. Even PastaQueen, who has lost nearly 200 pounds to date, still reports the occasional splurge. It doesn't mean that she completely goes back to eating the way she used to.

I have reassessed and started attending Weight Watchers meetings and have begun to lose weight again. I'm prepared to face obstacles without being too hard on myself.