I'm just your average, everyday, divorced 38 year old girl -- overweight, tragically unhip,
and trying to make a life for myself. I live with two furry beasts, Dave and Abby, whose
feline mission in life is to choke me with their fur. Nothing special.
'I am putting together a 14K gold charm bracelet to represent my achievements in losing weight and gaining health. So far, I have the bracelet (1st ten pounds - 246) and one charm, a cherub holding onto a heart, to symbolize that this is about cultivating love for myself (2nd ten pounds - 236). The charm that I bought today is a little can of mustard seeds, with "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, nothing shall be impossible unto you" imprinted on it, to remind me that I can move this mountain in front of me, no matter how insurmountable it looks.'
So, this was my (not so clever) way of telling everyone I'd reached the 30 pounds (I'm at 224 as of this morning, in fact) lost mark. Incidentally, my best friend, Tracy, has already bought me my third charm, as a birthday present, so I really need to earn it before 10/12, otherwise I'm going to look pretty silly sitting there with an unopened birthday present around Thanksgiving. It's definitely do-able, as long as I don't have any sort of meltdowns between now and then. I've got a potluck at work next week (meldown opportunity #1) and a trip to DC for work for a week from 10/5 to 10/10 (meltdown opportunity #2), so if I can pass through those tests without major binges AND keep up my current activity level, I think I'll do it.
Friday evening. I'm sleepy. Am I not the most profound read you've had today? Sigh.
I went to a friend's father's funeral this morning. Tony's father was a decorated (Marine) veteran of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. He had nine children and nearly as many grandchidren. He loved baking pies and (hand) writing correspondence. He passed away in his sleep Saturday night and, honestly, is there a better way to go? The funeral was lovely but they always leave me slightly melancholy as I reflect on my own mortality and the current state of my life.
Good news, though: it's never too late to change your life. I may not be able to control how much longer I have here, but I can darn sure make it a more fulfilling and meaningful journey. Just call me a Work in Progress.
Thursday morning. Yes, it's true...the usually balmy Hell has, indeed, experienced a cold snap. How else to explain the fact that my skirt yesterday - my stylish, sexy black pleated skirt - was so loose at the waistband that I couldn't keep my crisp, white shirt tucked in properly and kept having to straighten the seams back to where they belonged? HA. Double HA, as a matter of fact! Take that, fickle fat powers that be! I bought that skirt back in June, while I was at the Mall of America, and it was too tight to wear. I know that it fit perfectly no more than six weeks ago because I wore it just before I left for Portland on August 7th and it's at least an inch too big now - tee hee hee. On the other hand, the new skirt I bought a couple of weeks ago which cut my circulation off at the time, is looking absolutely smashing today and not endangering my life at all. At this point, I'm just beaming and thinking "YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS".
On my walk last night, I reflected a lot on where I am, where I'm going, and where I've been. I really (all evidence to the contrary aside) don't want to be like I was last time I lost weight and start not just obsessing on the weight/aesthetic part of this odyssey but actively hating my fat alter ego. My God, do you know (I know many of you do!) how hard, how impossibly, cruelly hard it is to be fat in America? It is not for the faint of heart, let me tell you. The number of people who feel perfectly justified in staring, pointing, laughing, making cruel, cutting comments, and - perhaps worst of all - cracking "fat jokes" is just staggering. What is it about us, the Fat, that makes it not only OK but almost expected behavior to belittle and criticize us? If you stab me, do I not bleed? Heck yeah I bleed! I bleed a lot, as a matter of fact, although I always try to do it behind the safety of my solid front door so that no one has the satisfaction of watching it. With all of that, I cannot allow myself to join in the chorus of fat haters, even as it pertains to myself. To do so would not only allow the powers of evil and hatred to win, it would diminish, at least in my eyes, what I'm accomplishing.
Wednesday morning. Today is going to be a good day. I say this not because I've tackled all of my pressing projects or even because I've got a great plan of attack, but because I love my outfit today. Yes, it's true, I really am that shallow and superficial! Crisp white, Oxford shirt (with adorable silver/pearl brooch), short black, pleated skirt, and black patent pumps with pointed toe, shiny silver buckle and strap detail, and skinny little three inch heel - WOOHOO. Oh yes, and let's not forget the Smashing Rasberry Kreme lipstick! Color me happy.
Tuesday morning. I am so scattered right now. I feel pulled in about 100 directions and, as a result, am apparently unable to concentrate properly on any of them. Work is just exploding with great opportunities to show how clever I am, if only my brain would engage. I've also got my beloved short-timer employee, with whom I am now meeting every morning at 7:30am (yes, they still do 7:30 in the morning) because I'm afraid he's not getting anything done otherwise. Then there are the fun things, the things I want to do for me, to help me enjoy my life a little more. Things like writing a one page biography to attach to an application to become a court appointed child advocate, which you wouldn't think I'd have a problem with but which has been helping me along to the nervous breakdown/panic attack that I know is right around the corner. Bottom line, I think, is that I don't handle multiple, large demands on my time well.
I think I might have a mild form of adult ADD and I know that I am, typically, a terrible procrastinator with projects that are long-term commitments, so the feelings of helplessness (not justified, I know - I can fix this, I just seem unable/unwilling/powerless to do so) that facing all of these things at once brings to the surface make me just miserable. Thank goodness I've got my walking! I know that most people listen to music or books on tape or something like that while they walk or jog, but I don't. I just walk and let my mind ramble. I don't try to stop the (completely random) thoughts that fly through my head, I just let them go without paying much attention to them unless something really piques my interest. Can I tell you how relaxing that is? Normally, I have to subjugate my unruly thoughts and distaste for concentrating on one thing for more than a few seconds, otherwise I'd never get anything done. While I walk, I can just relax and go with it.
I'm also really happy because 60 minutes (around 3.5 miles) of walking every day is becoming second nature for me. I vary the speed (between 3.4 and 3.8 mph) but the route is always the same because I've got mostly hills around my house and I don't do hills, so that severely limits where I can walk for an hour. I'm mixing up my walking with Leslie Sans0ne tapes (30 and 45 minutes) just to keep my muscles guessing and keep some variety in my life, and, in a couple of weeks, I'll begin my 13 week walk to jog program, which I'm really excited about.
Running is what I really want to be doing and I know I'll be a whole lot happier once I am. The weight will come off faster, which is a nice side effect, but the main thing I'm looking forward to is the feeling of lightness, of grace, of power that I had when I was running regularly. I'm getting more used to walking and have nearly overcome the feeling of slogging through mud as I walk and visualizing a lumbering elephant with each step, but I still don't like it. I will, however, keep walking in the mix of activities even once I start running, because I think running five or six days a week is probably not a good idea given my age and weight. Running four days and walking or aerobics one or two days sounds like a good mix. I also bought a bike pump at the store last weekend, so I ought to be able to get out and bike again, too. The problem that keeps me from becoming an avid bicyclist is, as I mentioned earlier, my house is on top of a hill and there's almost nowhere to go that isn't hilly. When I say "hilly", I'm talking like 6% grade, so it's not gentle hills, it's like Buckaroo Bonzai on the way down and "get off and walk" on the way back up. I have to stop when I walk up those hills, much less jog or bike.
Oh yeah, and, if anyone would like to write an interesting biography that will make a public service organization feel compelled to choose me as a volunteer, drop me a line.
Monday morning. It was an interesting weekend. I got a fair amount accomplished on Saturday and not much of anything done on Sunday. This wouldn't be such a bad thing if it weren't for the fact that I'd planned on going to the office for three hours over the weekend to get things done. In the end, I spent about an hour there and got a few things done but not the "big ticket" items that are due this afternoon. Sigh. You know what really sucks? Not being able to work on big projects during normal business hours, that's what!
On a positive note, however, I did make several really good decisions for my health yesterday. While I was driving home from work, I was starting to crave something other than my prepared meal - stuffed shells with green beans and berry cobbler - and started thinking about which Subway sandwich to get. Suddenly, I remembered that, the last few times I've eaten there, my feet and toes have hurt afterwards, which is a sure sign of high blood sugar for me. Just the remembrance of that, along with the fact that I've got a homecoming game to attend in six and a half weeks, made me drive straight home, put on my walking shoes, complete my 60 minute brisk walk, then eat the stuffed shells meal. As if knowing I'd made the right decision weren't enough reward, the scale showed a 0.8 pound loss this morning from yesterday morning's weight and that's definitely helping to keep me on the straight and narrow for this week.
