Don't Look Back In Anger

My life has been pretty much the same routine in the past few weeks. Going to work, going to the gym. Dinner with friends and family on the week-ends. Nothing very exciting, really and certainly nothing I felt was worth blogging about.

Yesterday, I was shopping for a dress for my friends’ wedding. I’m very happy that I found one for just 50$ but I’m slightly bummed that I had to settle for a size 18. I had tried on size 16 pants a couple of weeks ago and they fitted nicely. I really hoped to be able to buy a size 16 dress, there is such a difference in the choices available when you can fit in a size 16 since a lot of brands carry up to 16 but not higher (it’s even better when you’re a size 8 or 10, but that’s not in my reach right now). 

My non-official short-term goal was to be at least down to 200 lbs by the wedding on Dec. 11^th. It is still feasible, but this effing plateau is likely to make it a race to the finish. Today, I am at 208 lbs which means 4 weeks to lose 8 pounds. I am still motivated to loose the weight, but I’m really anxious to move on to the next part of my life, where I won’t be consumed by thoughts of food (what to eat? When to eat? Can I eat this? How many calories is this?) and that my most useful app on the iPod won’t be “Lose It”. I want to be able to be content with how I am at the moment, without any thought of how much more I have to go and how great it’ll be when I reach a “normal” weight. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not all that much about wishful thinking I wouldn’t be finding faults in my body when I reach goal. It’s more about the irritants of being overweight. Shopping for clothes, boots (my calves do NOT fit into knee-high boots, no matter how badly I want to be able to wear those) is a clear reminder that even if, looking at myself in the mirror, I feel good about the road traveled so far, there is still a long way to go. A clear reminder that I am not up to society’s standards yet. By that I don’t mean I don’t think I’m beautiful (although this can be debated) but simply that on a day where I felt satisfied and confident, I got a reality check: girl, don’t delude yourself, you’re still fat. I still don’t see what’s in the mirror correctly. I used to think I was a size 18. I obviously wasn’t since I’ve since lost 25 pounds and I still can’t fit in a smaller size but looking in the mirror at home and at the gym, I felt pretty certain I would fit comfortably in a 16. I even picked up a size 14 from the rack because it was the biggest size in a dress I liked. I couldn’t zip up the sizes 16. I guess I’m more than slightly bummed about this. It feels like I’ve been doing all this work and it’s hardly noticeable. It makes this whole process and the past 3 ½ months really frustrating. 

** I wrote the first part of this post earlier today and decided to wait after the gym to publish it, in case my spirits improved. They did not. I've been hitting the gym pretty regularly all week and really giving it my all. I was really hoping to bust this plateau. When I weighed myself, I'm still at 209 lbs! Plateaus suck (even more)!

Do I Disappoint You

 

Well, I can just say that plateaus suck. I grant you, I have not been perfect. I ate out all week-end and I was not reasonable. I realized that what I wanted to believe was the “old me” is still there inside, looking for the opportunity to come out. First, it was on Saturday night. I was having dinner with friends and the place they picked was a buffet. Tons of food, from different cuisine styles (but mostly unhealthy), all you can eat. I never took the “all you can eat” as a challenge, but in my mind, overeating at buffets has to do with the fact that no matter what or how much you eat, you’ll end up paying the same price. And at that place, the price was more than I would have paid if we had gone to a regular restaurant and eaten an appetizer as an entrée or a salad. So my old self kicked in: “If I’m going to pay for a lot of food and not be able to take any home, I might as well eat as much as possible here to make my money’s worth.” And so I did. I couldn’t even really count the calories accurately. The worst part is I deluded myself into thinking it was okay because my friends (normal weight) were doing the same.

It makes me wonder why - and how - society got to this point, where quantity of food is perceived at least as important as quality. I mean, the restaurant was huge and PACKED. For the whole time we were there, there was a line to get in. For the same price, one could eat better quality food in a nicer setting. Sure, you can’t refill your plate for free, but do you really need to? It’s not a question one asks when there is more food to sample and that it’s not going to cost more. To be able to offer such a big variety and quantity, the restaurant has to cut somewhere, and I’m willing to bet it’s on the quality. Sure it tasted fine. But good taste doesn’t mean quality. Fatty, salty or sweet food tastes good but it is not quality food.

And don’t get me started on chain restaurants like Pizza Hut or the like. If you live in a place where you can access small, local restaurants (and I don’t mean the local greasy spoon), I believe you’re better off eating out there. It’s likely the food is better; you can develop a relationship with the owner and get a good knowledge of how they make the food, the provenance of ingredients, etc. Plus, you’d be encouraging a local business and contributing more directly to your community. And it’s not really going to cost you more (man, I paid almost 25 CAD for crappy buffet food!)

So the plateau, yeah. It might very well be my own making.

Will You Still Need Me When I'm 64?

When I registered for a personal trainer at my gym, included in the package was a fitness assessment where a kinesiologist tested me on a few criteria to determine my “physiological age”, compared to my real age.

It started with a questionnaire regarding my daily habits in the last month (eating, exercise, drinking, etc.) and taking my blood pressure and resting heart rate. Then, she measured my waistline and what I would call the “roll pinches” where she pinched the fat at a couple of spots on the body (waist, calf, arms, back). Next was the cardio test where I had to walk at 3,4 mph and gradually increase the incline until I reached a heart rate of 145. I was also tested on my muscular endurance (lower back muscles, crunches and push-ups) and my flexibility, as well as how high I could jump.

I thought things went pretty well, and although I was not expecting my results to be the same age as I am in real life, I did not expect to be diagnosed as having a body of a 58 year old! That is exactly double my current age. And it's also after losing 25 pounds and doing regular exercise for about three months. I can only imagine how bad it was before I started doing any of this.

This did put me down a little. Especially the cardio part, where I did not expect to score so bad. Of course, I knew there are major improvements to be done to my body, if only for health reasons. However, I thought my overall shape was not too bad. I can run. I can touch my toes (although it is not easy). I can lift weights.  I can do a lot of things my “normal weight” friends can’t. I was really convinced this would make a difference (and it did a little, my “age” in the cardio and body shape measurements is something like 68 years old). I was starting to feel better about myself. Today, I feel fat and little bit ashamed. Not of the past 3 months, but of the last 15 years, of letting myself do that to my body. Today, I see the road ahead of me, and it seems incredibly long. I am discouraged to find out that I am definitely on a plateau, for the third week in a row now. Today, I don’t feel as confident that I will ever get there, where ever "there" is.