Do I Look Fat In This?

November sailed with continued success, creeping ever closer to another milestone with the hope of never seeing those numbers again once in the rear view mirror.  Even Thanksgiving was easy, keeping careful track of portions and making good choices.

Then came December, cursed month of failure and misery.  It was the worst month emotionally that I have had in forever.  Admittedly and thankfully, no one close to me died or was injured, so there’s that.  Still, wow, what a mountain that beast was to climb.  I’ll save my serial bitching for the journal and stick to the weight related issues here and yes, I do hear all of you sighing happily in relief over dodging THAT bullet.

I exercised maybe 8-10 times between the end of November and now.  Even though that was not a particularly magnanimous contribution to success, it was something and I do shudder to think how things would have gone without that effort.  A Series of Unfortunate Events (capital letters warranted) left me totally bereft and curled up into an ever growing, sniveling mass of comfort eating goo by the time January rolled around.

I estimate that I’ve gained back around 8 pounds or so of what I lost.  Probably 6 of those came from the incredibly impressive flauta binge in which I ate twelve or so of the buggers in a 24 hour period.  Cookies, candy, cookies, real soft drinks and lots of other food married up to the lack of exercising to whittle away quickly at my previous progress.  As I (quickly) sank lower and lower into serious depression, I was comfort eating more and more to the point that I become increasingly uncomfortable if I wasn’t eating at any given time.  Hand-mouth was ongoing.

As the crest of January hit, the fog cleared and I began to feel much more grounded and *back.*  December was like some bizarre, magic mystery tour that sailed me down the River Styx into the Underworld to visit every dark place I’ve ever known.  There were good things and I do not care to minimize those, but wow, the darkness was impressive to the point of almost obscuring them.

Like that same magic, January brought a wave of new hope, new life and a breath of fresh air as the whole New Year’s celebrating world let go of the oppression of 2009 and greeted 2010 with a near desperate anticipation.  I just rode the wave that was already there.

I am still not exercising.  That begins on Monday when the kids finally go back to school.  Three weeks of Winter Break is just too damned long.  This week has been a focus on returning to disciplined eating in terms of frequency, content and portions.  I started taking my Mila again and the taste means success to me, so that was very nice.

I am still primarily using The Zone diet because it gives me the best results and seems to agree with my system well.  The emphasis is on lean proteins and low glycemic index foods.  No potatoes or white bread or refined sugar products.   The feeling of groundedness begins almost immediately.  Water intake suffered greatly and I am working on that as well.

A friend of mine was kind enough to give me the EA Sports Active More Workouts program for the Wii for Christmas and I enjoy it very much.  The response time is far superior than the first version of this game, although be sure to know that these are all new exercises and routines and none of the ones from the first edition are included.  I plan to use those two as my primary work out focus.

At some point, I got the Biggest Loser work out for the Wii and I was completely disappointed.  It is very thrown together and my high hopes for it were for naught.

Speaking of the Biggest Loser, their season premier is tonight and most of the house is eager for it.  For some reason I cannot fathom, Dylan and Delena started watching the show with me last season and got hooked, so the three of us will be gathered around the TV tomorrow morning (I work tonight during the actual airing) to dive into another season.

I feel the weight I have gained will leave quickly.  I have gotten to know my body very well over the past years of concerted struggle with weight loss (as opposed to my previous half-assed struggle) and I know that new weight does not sit comfortably on me and leaves quickly.  I’ll give it 2 weeks at the very most.

I found a wonderful article on sagging skin that impressed me tremendously and gave me great hope, mostly because it blended well with my own experience and what I have learned over time.  It is here.  I am debating ordering this guy’s e-book, but $21 just seems pricey to me.

My daughter-in-law, Valerie, looked wonderful at Christmas.  She had gastric bypass surgery in March and has lost easily over 100 pounds since then.  She and I started out at around the same weight.  She has not exercised much during her process, but her job is such that she is on her feet almost nonstop.  She looks like a teenager now.  Eric was commenting on how little loose skin she has on her arms and face and he’s right.  She looks great.  It’s odd to suddenly see almost half of the person who was there before.  She is 27 and I am 48 (plus I’ve had twice as many babies as she has with 6 to my credit), so I don’t expect miracles, but it is encouraging, even though weight loss surgery is not an option for me.

I had a bit of a smile recently.  I’m in a strange “in between” size where 20-22 pants are way too big, but 18-20’s are a little too snug for good comfort.  I decided to get some sweat pants since they are only $6 at Wal*Mart and since I rarely go any place where real humans see me anyway.  I thought a couple pair of those would get me through my current awkward stage at a minimal expense.  The conflict came in what size to get.  I didn’t feel I would be in 2X for much longer, but couldn’t remember the last time I bought just XL.  This time I did, got home and wow!  They fit and were almost too big!  God bless generously sized sweats!

For those who do not know, the sizes past XL and into numbered sizes (2X, 3X, etc) are when the fashion (and I use the word so loosely it rattles) industry begins to charge you extra for the additional fabric used to make clothing to encompass your abundant girth.  XL qualifies as almost normal sized folk.

Granted, I am not foolish enough to believe I could walk into any store and grab and XL, slide into it and look like it thinks about fitting me, but hey, in the $6 sweat pants section of the Placerville, California Wal*Mart, I wear a size XL.  That’s something like “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere.”

For the foreseeable future, long sleeved t-shirts, my black sweater and $6 sweat pant are my “uniform.”  I might actually strip everything else out of my closet and call it good.  ”And she looked upon her closet of $6 sweat pants and long sleeved t-shirts and saw that it was good.”

The sweater is because we fat people often have  no clue how much that fat insulates us and since I had my initial weight loss from earlier in the year, I tend to be cold all the time.  By the time I’m finished with this, the firmness of my body will likely be caused by the fact that my bones and muscles have all turned to solid ice.

Meh, who cares.