Hello all,
Let me apologize in advance, this is going to be long and rambling.
I haven’t posted to any of the other threads, by the time I notice them they’re monsters and I can’t keep the attention span held long enough to plow though 15 pages.
I hope y’all don’t mind that I’m participating in spirit, but am not sure I can bring myself to type in the numbers of pounds, at least not until I’ve had some degree of success at keeping it off. I notice that the majority of you are working on losing what seems to me a small amount of weight (and I know this is a mental thing on my part, I absolutely do not mean to demean or belittle anyone’s struggle, it just seems that I have a monumental way to go, and honestly I’d be absolutely thrilled to be “only” thirty pounds overweight) I was, for a time, morbidly obese. I’m sure I still technically am, although I have almost never felt that way. I lost a whole bunch of weight a couple years ago eating a strict vegan diet and working out to a pathological degree (including two hours of martial arts, weight lifting, and running two miles, all in the same day, every day). As can be expected, I couldn’t maintain that routine forever, and it’s crept back on slowly but surely, particularly after moving in with my heavily carnivorous (now) husband and going jobless for six months, meaning no classes and no gym membership.
So, I’m attacking it now with a renewed conviction of subtle life changes in the spirit of slowly but surely will keep it off far more certainly than a crashing 180*, so to speak. My first change was to pay a lot of attention to when I was hungry, only eat to satisfy hunger, and only eat until that hunger was satisfied. I learned to eat much more slowly instead of sucking my lunch down as fast as possible in order to get errands and such done on my half-hour lunch break. I stopped snacking out of boredom or frustration. From this change alone I am losing half a pound a day or more. Only by eating an average of 1500-1800 calories a day, sometimes more and sometimes far less–and sometimes I have pizza for dinner or a coke with my lunch, and I no longer beat myself up about it–I am losing about half a pound a day. I bought an elliptical machine and am working out about five times a week, an easy three ten minute sets with crunches and leg lifts in between. I work out hard enough to sweat and feel like I’m pushing myself, but not like I did before. I am paying a lot of attention to the food I eat, but not necessarily in a bad way. I have a long history with eating disorders, and have to be very careful not to slip back into a 300 calorie a day mode.
I feel like the difference is that these changes are normal. These things I’m doing are what normal people do in the course of taking in food for the day, and expending energy. I’m not eating an ultra-strict diet, I am just careful about portions. I also find myself craving veggies and salads instead of eating fried foods or sandwiches with lots of cheese and mayo, which I think I did more often than I imagined. If there’s a birthday cake at work, I might have a bite or two to sample, but if I don’t really enjoy it, I won’t keep eating. If it’s really, really good, I’ll have a small slice, and that’s okay. We have a little junk food in the house, but because I am being very careful to listen to my body and only eat to satisfy hunger or craving, I find myself not ever touching it… not because I’d beat myself up about it, but just because I don’t want it.
The thing that has me a little worried is that it seems so easy… as though I’m not having to work hard for it even though weight loss is such a difficult thing. And maybe it’ll come back to bite me in the ass later on down the road. I know that my basal metabolic rate is huge, vast, and that I’m losing weight quickly mostly because I have so much weight to lose. I am also aware that it’ll slow agonizingly when I’m closer to a normal weight.
Since mid-January, I’m down 37 pounds. I’m mentally congradulating myself for every ten pounds lost. I have three big goals, fifty pounds, one hundred pounds, and one hundred fifty pounds. At that point I’ll still be a heavier than the charts say I ought to be, but the charts are wrong. At the “ideal” weight for my height my hipbones and ribs stick out, I look sickly and disproportionate. My husband has very seriously asked me to never be that thin again.
One of my closest friends is bemoaning a bit of belly left over from her last (of six!) pregnancies. I told her I had more weight to lose than she weighed, period. She looked at me like I was insane, “you’re joking… right?” I said I was, but not by much, and in all honesty I wasn’t joking. I’m feeling a bit humiliated even discussing it, so I may or may not post again.
Thanks for your time.
