80 Pounds Lost!

Yippee! The scale gave me a 223 this morning and I am officially claiming 80 pounds lost since my high of 303 in June 2009. That is 54 since surgery in December. It is so fun to keep celebrating the milestones, but I also know that I cannot get complacent.

I was watching Biggest Loser last night and realized how many of the contestants had some sort of surgical intervention to lose weight, whether it was vertical banding, gastric bypass or lapband. Yet even after that, they still struggled with their weight. That just proves the point that surgery is not the end all and be all to battling obesity. I am glad to have those reminders once in a while. I have worked hard on my head in this battle, something I think I truly underestimated prior to surgery. I think about how food filled my life before, it was such a comfort to me. I used it to celebrate, to hide my misery and to fill the hole in my lonely life. I don't think I truly understood what a crutch food had become to me. I really lost myself for a while there. I am glad to find a better me and I know that I need to work on me everyday both physically and emotionally.

Biggest Loser New Season and New Goal

I love the Biggest Loser. It should give me such motivation! I always get caught up in their personal stories and I see such pain and this feeling of a lifetime of defeat.

I am really needing to do something to motivate myself to exercise so I decided to give myself a month long exercise challenge and what better way to kick it off than to create a logo, haha! So in order to celebrate the 80 pounds I have lost--or will have by October 1! I am challenging myself to walk 80 miles in the month of October. So 31 days, that means I need to average about 2.5 miles per day, that's very doable. So no bitching and moaning about it's to dark, too cold or whatever, because I can still exercise inside using my DVD walking program. I just need something to shoot for. So starting October 1st I am shooting for a total of 80 miles walked by the end of the month and I will keep track here on my blog with a ticker too. Here's to new found motivation!

New Number!

It's surprising to me, considering that I was gone traveling and that typically means that my eating habits get a little out of whack, but apparently I did enough walking and didn't stray too far from good food choices. This morning the scale gave me a 224, woohoo! Just one pound away from 80 pounds lost! (Actually I saw 223 the other day, but didn't think I was ready to believe it--I'll get there!)

September sucked for exercise, I really need to kick it in gear in October if I plan to have continued weight loss. I aim to hit 223 before the end of September so I can claim a 5 pound loss this month. A nice and steady pound a week. Hope I get there.

Catching Up on the Week

Well, it's been an amazing week. I left for a conference in Portland, Maine last Sunday and returned home on Friday. It was a great trip, I had several NSV's that just made me feel great...I fit in an airplane seat, no seatbelt extenders, no sore feet from walking, not being winded walking up the hill to the hotel everyday, great new and new-to-me clothes to wear, shopping at the LL Bean flagship store in Freeport and purchasing an XL fleece vest from the regular size section of the store. It was an awesome week for sure.

Then on Friday, I had a first date with Tim from E-Harmony. We had a great night, spent about 3 hours having dinner and talking. I hope to see him again sometime this week or next. Keep your fingers crossed! This is so much fun.

Third thing is that I came home to a new number on the scale...I saw 225! Woo hoo! What a great week, it will be hard to top this one for quite some time I am sure.

I'm Claiming 226

It's been a stubborn pound, but I am finally going to claim 226 on the scale. That is only the second pound lost this month, not stellar, but a loss is a loss right! So that is 77 lost so far. When the scale is being so stubborn it is sometimes hard to keep perspective and look at the big picture. You get so wrapped up in that particular pound that you forget to see the total loss. I need to really watch my food intake and kick the exercise in gear. It is a simple formula and yet so challenging! Have a great weekend!

Date Night Next Friday!

I joined E-Harmony recently and I am so happy to say I have a date next Friday! Woohoo! This is going to be so much fun. I am so glad that I am actually starting to live my life and so much of it is because of my weight loss and improving my self esteem. It feels so good to just feel alive again. So I will keep you posted about how the date goes. In the mean time I am headed to Portland, ME for a conference for a few days, that will be awesome and when I fly back in I will be ready for my date. Life is good.

Watching Discovery Health and Thinking

There have been lots of programs on Discovery Health about obesity lately. Tonight I am watching a show about obesity in young people. It's almost painful to watch, you just want to tell them to make the changes while they are young and avoid the heartache that obesity will cause them in their life. My therapist and I have been talking a lot lately about regrets in life. While the message to remember is that you can't change the past and you can only move forward, sometimes you still can't help but think about the "what ifs".

I know that I have made many life decisions based on my weight. For a long time I had closed the door on things like pursuing a relationship with someone because my self esteem was so low because of my weight. I realize how warped my thinking had become and my self image had even been warped. I keep looking at my comparison pictures and I can literally see the emptiness in the old pictures. I look miserable, like there is no light in my eyes. There is so much fat on my face that I can hardly smile. I knew I was big, but until I see a new version of myself I don't realize how bad it was. The only way to survive like that was to tell yourself that you weren't that bad, and that you hadn't changed that much. But a picture is worth a thousand words, you can see how much better life is in every new photo I take.

I had another little epiphany this week, realizing that my attitude about food is starting to change. I was at a lunch meeting this week with some co-workers, all of whom are either overweight or obese. I ordered a marinated chicken breast and cottage cheese off of the "lighter side" part of the menu and had a very satisfying lunch. Almost everyone else at the table ordered the daily special which included a cup of creamy chicken and rice soup and a dish called a hot hamburger. It was a burger on two slices of bread, fries on top of that and then gravy over the whole thing. Let's count this out:

Soup 225 calories
Hamburger 250 calories
2 slices bread 160 calories
Fries 380 calories
Gravy 120 calories

That's 1105 calories for one meal, and then to top it off when we got back to our meeting the Schwan's guy was trying to be nice and gave all of us an ice cream cone which was another 250 calories, for a grand total of 1355. Wow. It wasn't that long ago I would have been right there with them. Licking my plate clean and I would have had regular meals the rest of the day. It was almost gross to watch. I guess that's a good thing, I feel like I am finally starting to alter a few of those pathways in my brain that tell me that food is about pleasure. Instead I truly ate things because they fueled my body. Full disclosure though, I did eat the ice cream cone--and damn it was good, LOL. At least I can feel good that my noon meal was probably closed to a total of 600 calories, even including the ice cream.

The scale isn't moving too much. I have fallen off the wagon as far as my exercise goes, that needs to change and I know that I need some calorie adjustments. I think what's tough right now is that my total calorie needs is starting to get so much lower and I haven't necessarily made that adjustment so my weight loss continues. I am eating the same calories amounts but I haven't taken into account that as I get smaller my calories needs are decreasing. I get the feeling that there will always be something to work on, something to keep tweaking. This is a marathon, not a sprint and I just need to keep that in perspective.

This has been a heck of a long post, guess I just had some garbage to get rid of today. Wow, it's almost like my own self-led therapy session tonight, LOL.

September Progress Picture

Well, here we are in the middle of the month and it's time for a progress picture. I also included a picture comparing my pre-op picture at 285 and then down to my current 226. That's not even my worst of 303, but you get the picture, lol. I am feeling so much thinner! Wow, all of the sudden you realize that you are a different shape than you used to be. I know I still have a ways to go, but it has been a long time since I have seen me at this level--literally decades. I think I am getting close to my high school weight and perhaps starting to surpass it. That's weird. I don't know myself as a skinny anything, let alone a skinny adult. Now mind you my definition of "skinny" is not the same as the rest of the world, but you know what I mean.

In other good news, the scale was kind this morning, delivering a 226--even after my Oreo cookie binge yesterday. This weight loss thing is so fickle, you never can tell when a pound is going to drop off. Just when you've given up thinking that the scale will ever move, it suddenly does. Crazy world.

And The Oreo's Won...

I don't know what got into me today, but a shiny, yellow package of Golden Oreo's kept calling my name while I was out running errands today. I bought them and ate about 2 servings. I just needed some sugar. I hope this was an isolated incident. On a positive note, I did go for a two mile walk today, and overall my calories for the day even with the Oreo's were not out of whack. But wow, it's been a while since I had such a craving I couldn't fight. Suppose they are bound to happen once in a while. As long as it doesn't become habit.

New Number!

Yippee, I saw 227 on the scale this morning. Scale is moving pretty slow lately--if at all, so I am glad to see any downward movement at all. I should take advantage of the beautiful weather outside today and get some walking in. Might head for the trail by the river later today. I can't believe it is already mid-September. Next week I am headed to Portland, ME on a business trip. I am excited to do some sightseeing and I have a whole bunch of new-to-me clothes to wear. I am also so glad that my stamina and physical abilities to walk and sight see are so much better. I know there have been trips in the past where I dreaded traveling a little because of it. I am also going to be much happier in those small airplane seats and I bet I won't have to ask for a seat belt extender. Woohoo!

Indecent Exposure

Wow, I was absolutely dumbfounded by what I found in my closets and drawers today. I have packed up a box for Goodwill with pants and capri's that don't fit anymore, most of them ranging in size from 28 to 24. Count 'em: 14 pairs of pants and 6 pairs of capris. I also took stock of what I have that fits, and that includes 7 pairs of pants that fit now and 3 that will fit later. That's hardly enough to get through a normal week! I was on the verge of being arrested for indecent exposure, because my pants were bagging so bad. I am also saving back a pair of pants and capris that I have photos of myself wearing and I will use them for before and after comparisons.

Last week a good friend told me I needed to put away all my stuff that didn't fit because I looked way bigger than I am really am and that my butt looked saggy. I guess I have been trying to stretch my clothes budget and haven't replaced a lot of summer stuff. I was just trying to get by and by the end of the summer I was swimming in most of the stuff. So now it is the challenge of moving on to my fall wardrobe which is really going to be complicated. I at least had a few smaller summer sizes because of previous weight loss attempts, but I have never been on the lighter side of the scale during the winter time. So now as I dig out my fall and winter stuff from storage I know I will only be able to use a maximum of 5-6 shirts and even those will be plenty big. I have to make some major wardrobe additions this fall. For posterity sake, I am wearing about a 18/20 in pants right now and I am between a 1X and 2X depending on the shirt. That's a long way from the size 28/30 pants and 3X/4X sweaters of last year. I have so much work to do!

Dating Experiment #2

Well, the first dating experiment fizzled. B, as I call him, just couldn't get his shit together. So seeing that I was not going to be a priority in his life, I pulled the plug and moved on. Disappointing, but in the end a good thing. I did leave the door slightly open, just in case he decides to get it together, but I am not holding my breath.

So let's move on to experiment #2. I got some cold hard cash for my recent 38th birthday and I decided to invest it in a 4 month membership to E-Harmony. So I am "communicating" with some new prospects as we speak. What a wonderful new adventure full of ups and downs. I am glad to say that I am "normal" and trying to find my way in the world of dating. My therapist would be proud, lol!

Starting to Feel Like Fall

It's been so cool out the last few days! Brrr...I'm not ready for fall. This week I had to change from wearing capri's to full length pants. And let me tell you something, that is a challenge to find what sizes actually fit right now. I tried on several from last spring that I thought mught still fit and man, was I wrong! Way too big...which is awesome, but now I don't know what the heck to wear. Guess I am going to have to go on a little shopping spree for some smaller pants. I have never been much of a thrift store shopper, but it seems that may be the only sensible thing to do since I am barely in sizes long enough to warrant buying anything very expensive. What an adventure! I am taking the morning off today. I overslept and decided to just say screw it and go into work a little later. Perhaps this would be a great day to visit the local thrift shop in town. Scale still reads 228, I hope it will start moving soon.

Stuck, Stuck, Stuck and More Ramblings

This was not a good week for eating. I was out of town on business all week, at of all places the State Fair. That means my food choices were quite challenging. All the wrong things. I got stuck so many times this week it was not even funny. This morning I had a heck of a sliming episode after eating a chewy granola bar. That did not go well, I slimed for a good half hour before things moved along and I couldn't get a good PB to help things either. I just had to wait it out and it was quite painful.

Even after all that, I still managed to stay pretty much the same on the scale, which is surprising. I was really expecting it to be higher, but instead I managed to hold steady at 228. I didn't lose any but at least I didn't gain. Since I was gone all week, that also messed up my walking and now the weather is getting chilly and we are losing more daylight every day, so wanting to get up and walk is not too appealing. I will need to figure something else out I guess. May be time for the gym or some other indoors activities.

So my goal for this week is just to behave as far as eating is concerned. Since I have been gone for a week, my fridge is empty so I need to do some grocery shopping and choose some good foods that won't get stuck. I need to get back into a usual routine again. I get the feeling that losing pounds may be a real challenge in the next weeks as I try to find a new routine of both eating right and exercising.