A New Beginning

Monday, ugh. It’s cloudy and threatening to rain outside, which is just ick… I didn’t bring an umbrella, so I really hope it either doesn’t rain, or rains while I’m at work and before I have to go home. I really am in desperate need of a new umbrella.

Over the weekend I kept coming up with all these great weight related topics that I wanted to blog about, and naturally, I’ve forgotten them all! Oh, now I remember one… I have been thinking a lot about how my weight and my own perception of my weight correlate. For as long as I can remember I have been heavier than my peers. When I was younger, I was probably 10 pounds overweight and as I’ve gotten older, that difference has been anywhere from 10 pounds to 80 pounds. Yet, how I have felt about myself and my body has remained remarkably consistent. Even at the times when I was barely heavier than my peers, I felt hugely different, and I really think this has been a major contributing factor to why I’ve gained when wanting so desperately to lose.

In a nutshell, I feel the same around my friends at 203 pounds as I do when I’m 165 pounds. Sure, at 165 I’m probably a size 12, can shop at regular stores, and maybe a stranger passing by wouldn’t see me and immediately label me as overweight… but, I’m still obviously bigger than my friends and therefore, still feeling bad about myself.

I noticed this a lot yesterday while shopping for bridesmaid dresses with my sisters and friend Eli. I’ve lost about 25 pounds since June, so you’d think I’d be happy and at least feeling better about how I look, but really, I’m still embarrassed. Here I am, in the middle of this huge bridal store watching my sisters and Eli effortlessly slip in and out of these sample bridesmaid dresses, all of which are obviously too big on them. They’re walking around wearing dresses that are being held up with chip clips, meanwhile, my big ol’ size 12 dress is hanging in a fitting room, still way too small for me to get into it. I want to be happy, but I just look at them and feel ashamed. None of those sample dresses would fit me, that’s a certainty.

Weight is such a confusing and complicated issue. On one hand, I feel like I’m on track and I am excited about reaching my next goal. On the other, I have all the feelings of embarrassment, shame, and just a feeling that I don’t fit in. I worry that even if I lose all this weight, I’m still going to feel that way. Obviously there will always be someone funnier, thinner, richer, etc. to compare myself to, and I worry that I won’t be able to stop. Yesterday it felt wrong that here I am, the overweight friend, and I’m getting married. Meanwhile, the thin, beautiful people around me are single. That doesn’t seem right.

I know drawing comparisons is useless, but I can’t help it. I used to always think I had good bone structure and an attractive face. But, once I lose this weight and I don’t have it as the reason I’m not beautiful, what if I don’t like what’s underneath? That’s kind of a scary thought. I was also watching the Sex and the City movie this weekend, and those women, my god they are thin. So will I just start comparing myself to that? I hope not.

Part of this just comes down to me being a perfectionist. I want to be the best I can be, whatever that is. I am always working on or towards something and trying to expand my horizons. I doubt I’ll ever be 100% content, and that’s okay, as long as I can feel comfortable. I just hope I don’t stay in this self critical mode forever. I want to think that once I have my weight under control, I will feel more at ease. I know that even if I reach my ultimate goal and get down to 130, I’ll never be able to relax when it comes to weight. This is the struggle I have in my life. Some people struggle to find their soul mate/partner, others struggle financially, still others struggle with guilt or other emotional issues. I struggle with my weight. I always have, and I expect that I always will. I just hope that in the future it’s a more manageable battle and not something that takes up such a huge portion of my life. I suppose only time will tell.

I can’t wait to “know” what happens when I get to my goal though. And, most importantly, I hope I realize and can appreciate looking and physically feeling good this time. I know I’ve looked pretty darn good at points in the past, but just due to my nature of comparing myself to everyone else, I never felt good. It’s only in hindsight that I can see how good I had it, and that’s a darn shame.

This food tracking really does seem to work. Damn it though, I did not want to admit that. I have known all along that journaling your food really helps, but it just so time consuming! I hate that I’m losing now that I started tracking again because I thought I had things under control. Of course, I am happy to be losing, and it’s worth the effort. I just am worried that I’m going to have to do this for my entire life and it’s really a lot of work!

I started tracking a little last week, but I wasn’t putting in as much effort as I should have. Monday I really stepped things up though, and now I have a good system, I think. I didn’t realize previously that when you entered recipes into Spark People it totals all the nutrition info for you. That makes tracking dinner a TON easier, because otherwise I’m totaling everything in a entire recipe in my head and then trying to divide it all out. I’ve used the spark recipe thing the past two nights, and it’s not too bad. It still probably takes me half an hour to enter dinner, but eventually I’ll hopefully have all of my favorite foods in there.

I guess I just need to focus, focus, focus. I really want my dress to fit. I’m starting to be able to imagine it a little. I’m still very worried, but there’s only so much I can do. I don’t want to stop living my life or go around feeling horrible the way I was the past week.

Ugh, I just got an email that we are having lunch catered today. I hate when they spring stuff like this on me last minute! I hope no one minds that I’m still going to leave and go to the gym! These are the worst though because the food is catered from a place that doesn’t want to tell you exactly what is in it (they don’t want to give up their secrets) and of course they don’t have nutrition facts for any of it. I’m going to try and not eat anything. These are the kinds of things that that make me feel like I can’t wait until I’m at my goal. If I was at my goal, I’d just eat only a few things or try and pick what looks healthy and that would be that. But now, I can’t afford to take a chance. Stupid lunch.

Finally, a change on the scale has come today. It’s not huge… I weighed 180.5, but for once, it doesn’t feel like a total fluke. I weighed 180.0 last Saturday (I think), but I knew that after the night out I had Friday it was due to dehydration and the fact that I basically ate nothing after 3:00 pm (yet stayed awake until 3:00 am). So, I’ll take this. I hope tomorrow to see a 17-something on the scale though. I have a big thing in my head about getting to that next lower number; as soon as I hit 189.5, I was anticipating 179.5, once I hit 179.5 I will probably anticipate 169.5, etc. I guess it’s because 10 pounds is an amount of weight I can handle losing. Thinking about the full 52 pounds left to go is just too daunting. Actually, just thinking that I’ve lost 20 already is kind of weird.

Anyway, I hope that’s the end of my plateau. I seriously don’t want to ever feel that desperate again. I felt like I was doing everything right, so I really don’t get it. I was reading spark pages again for some of the people who I really find inspirational on there, but they all took a lot longer to lose the weight than what I’m trying to do. So then I was thinking my goals must just have been totally out of line. I still don’t think they are unattainable though… 1.5 pounds a week should be more than possible given how much exercise I’ve been doing.

In any event, crisis is over for today and hopefully tomorrow too. I hope the doctor isn’t disappointed though, that would make me feel bad. I’m mixing up my food a little now though and brought salad for lunch. I may go buy some tuna or something too though, because this salad is a little on the whimpy side (it’s definitely less than 3 cups of greens, which only have like 15 calories).

Ok, I need coffee, for some reason I have a headache.