Oh, The Places You Don't Go...

When you aren't even trying.

I guess it isn't really a fair thing to say I've gone nowhere in my weight loss, because I've certainly gone somewhere, with somewhere actually meaning backwards, all the way to the goddamn starting line and then some. So I was pretty amazing back when I had lost 40-whatever pounds and was in the 220s. I was so, so proud in January when I was still barely clinging to that decade by a thread. Then something happened, also known as me not caring.

So now it's October and I weighed 268 pounds yesterday. That would be an extra two pounds on my previous starting weight, thankyouverymuch. I realize the situation could be much, much worse. I'm thankful, I suppose, that it isn't more than two extra pounds. But the reality is that I still gained all 40-whatever pounds I had lost back, and I have to face the dreaded habit changing all over again. All of the not wanting to exercise and wanting to eat all of the things is right in front of me, a wall that seems exhausting just to look at. But I have to start climbing if I'm ever going to reach the other side, even if "the other side" in this case means just getting back to the 220's. I miss that weight. I was looking pretty damn good if I do say so myself.

Right now I don't really care much about my end goal. I'll worry about that when I get there. For now I just want to set my sights on 200 pounds. For me, that is a pretty phenomenal place. It's a wonderful thing, sometimes, to be tall. If and when i get there, I will make decisions about how far past that I want to be. Maybe I'll even just focus on maintaining that place for a few months before I plunge deeper. I can't really say for sure right now, all I can really say is that I have to do something so I can stop feeling like such a failure for all of the work that I've undone.

Yesterday was by far one of the worst days I think I've ever had, and the majority of that can be attributed to my weight. I braved the scale when I got out of bed and it was all downhill from there. I was talking about it with Brandon, wonder boyfriend. Talking about what happened to my old efforts and why I sometimes feel like it's just not even worth it to try. Somewhere in there he decided that while I was already in a pretty shit mood, he may as well get it off his chest that even he is bothered by my weight.

I can't really explain the way that this hurt me, not well enough for it to really amount to what I was feeling right in that moment. It hurt my heart to know that someone that I love so deeply felt that way about me, or about my weight. I actually felt a little bit betrayed, and by a little bit I mean it felt like a bus colliding with me. Suddenly there was this uncontrollable need to fidget, and I felt like I suddenly had to be self conscious around him. This is not what I have ever wanted, not by a long shot.

I know that Brandon loves me. This much I do not doubt. I'm sure there are people who would have reacted much more violently to his confession than I myself did. Maybe it's because I was so shocked, but I don't really know. As much as it hurt me, I'm oddly glad that he was able to say something to me. I don't want him to have to harbor thoughts like that without being able to express them, no matter how much it might have hurt to hear it spoken out loud. And in reality, this is just another rather important piece of the puzzle that forces me to realize that eating everything in sight is(surprise!) not working for me at all. Things have to change.

But goddamn, change is hard.

Soreness!

So I did it. I finally made myself exercise yesterday. I went to the gym! :D

This pretty much involved 30 minutes of the elliptical, 250 crunches on one of those funky machines specifically *for* crunches... Andddd I messed around on some of the weight machines for arms. My arms ill probably be my focus when it comes to weight machines, because my legs have had the unfair advantage of carrying my fat ass around for my entire life! Sooooo they're already pretty strong. My arms are.... Uhm.... Well. I have absolutely no upper body strength whatsoever. So the idea is that I want to change that!

After my workout yesterday morning I had a little bit of soreness in my arms, 'cause I never really make them do much of anything... And holy cow, they're definitely sore today! Haha. There isn't a way I can move my arms that doesn't result in some kind of reaction from them. But this is good, right? :D Just means I actually made them work. Which is good!

I'm toying with the idea of going back to the gym today. Obviously I know better than to do arm machines again, because that would be dumb. But I could do more elliptical and some crunches and feel good about having a quick workout in there. Mostly I want to because my workout schedule for now will probably be something like Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday, but since I'm just getting into it I don't want to have the opportunity to have two days off to completely lose any little edge of motivation I have under me. Trust me, it's not a very sturdy platform right now! I'm not sure if I'm actually going to follow through though... I'm SO tired today, it's stupid! D: I guess we'll see....

EDIT: I DID end up going to the gym eventually, at like... 2. :D I really did just do another 30 minute bout of elliptical plus another 250 crunches that made me want to die a little! Hahaha. I'm going to enjoy allowing myself the day off tomorrow for sure now. :) Hooray!

And Suddenly, It Was 2011!

I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful new years. :) I enjoyed it at home with a few friends and the boyfriend. We played monopoly, watched movies, and enjoyed our general silliness.

New years os the time when most people make resolutions to lose weight, and then they almost never really seem to follow through. All I want right now is to get back on board with what I started last April. I had hoped to be at my goal weight by this April that's appoaching, but I doubt that's going to happen even if I get back on track now. Even so, I can make more progress... And more progress is what it's all about.

I don't know what I want to do about exercise right now. Running doesn't sound like a good time with the cold and the general wetness that's been going on here this winter(I know some of you would scoff at what I'm calling wetness... But I live in California. I'm not very tolerant of such things!). The other option is to actually take advantage of the gym membership that I have that I never ever use that my parents continue to pay for. That probably isn't a bad idea. Running was way more convenient, because I could just step out of the house and start doing it... Going to the gym involves driving for like 15-20 minutes, then working out, then driving back home. But I suppose it's worth it to get hot, right? LOL.

I don't have a plan. I don't even have a start at this point, other than the whole... I-lost-45ish-pounds-and-kept-it-off thing. That part is still awesome. I wanted to stay in the 220s, and this morning I weighed 229. So that's the highest part of staying where I wanted, but whatever. New Years was.... Less than healthy. LOL. But in all seriousness I have no idea how I'm going to make this start happening again. I keep on saying that though, don't I?

It's like this has turned from a weight losss blog to a someday-I'll-lose-more-weight blog. Emphasis on the someday. How lame am I?

Oh, Hi There!

Yes, I'm definitely still alive. No, I definitely still haven't gotten back into my weight loss routine.

BUT.

I'm also still not gaining. :) I weighed 225lbs this morning, and I am very happy about that. Is it quite as awesome as losing? Obviously not. But the fact that I've been able to maintain this long without having to even really work too hard at it makes me SO excited! Clearly I was really in it this time.

I've more or less resigned myself to the fact that I probably wont be back in the weight loss game until this whole holiday thing is over. Luckily Christmas is in about a week, and then New Years, then it's all over... And I will have to take up my efforts again when all of the other people are also working on weight loss for the resolutions most of them will probably not follow through with. I will not call mine a resolution, though... I'm just picking back up where I left off. :)

These are the Christmas presents I have for people, under my silly fake plant posing as a christmas tree. All I can give you guys for christmas is this blog update, though. :D Hope everyone has a good Christmas/whatever else you may celebrate, and a super awesome new years!

Slowly, I feel like I'm coming back to life.

I haven't picked up the exercise yet, but that's okay. At least I have step aerobics to help keep me up with it twice a week. This is better than nothing, right? I'm hoping to get myself back into an exercise groove soon. But I've been paying better attention to my food again the last few days, and tring in general to not be so... Lame. Hahaha. I know that I have this in me, because I've already come so far, and what I've done even in the last two months is an accomplishment - I maintained. I fluctuated around a 6ish pound window, but I'm still right in there, and that is a huge deal if you ask me!

I had a reminder of all of the reasons that this makes me happy yesterday. I had a job interview at an Old Navy store, for a holiday position. One of the questions I was asked was to tell her about an accomplishment that I was really proud of. The very, very first thing that popped into my little head was my weight loss. I told her how I lost 45 pounds or so from the end of April to September. How it was a big deal, because I've struggled with this for a long time and it was such a good feeling to finally get ahold of it. I also told her that in the last couple of months I've taken a break, but still maintained my loss because obviously I have no interest in gaining that weight back.

I really do still have a great deal of pride in what I've accomplished, it just got buried I think under all of the lost craziness that I've been trying to dig through. 45 pounds is no small thing, and I worked hard to make that happen! I deserved the break I took, and I can't say that I really regret it, except that maybe if I hadn't gotten off track I could still be on my way to onederland by Christmas. Not the end of the world, though, because the point is that I'm going to get there, someday. It will be very, very exciting.

And in case you were wondering how that interview went at Old Navy... I'm going to an orientation on the 14th, pending the background check they're doing. Now, I haven't done a damn thing in my life, so I'm not worried about the background check, soooo... I'm more or less hired, I think! I'm very, very excited, because not only do I love Old Navy as a store anyway, but the last time I had a job was February of 2009 when they closed the Hallmark store I worked at. This is only supposed to be a seasonal position, but it's fun to think that maybe they'll like me enough to keep me around. If not, though, it will still be nice to have something more recent in my job history.

This Is The Story of A Girl...

Right now I feel like my weight loss story should start with once upon a time.

"Once upon a time, there was a girl who was very tired with herself. In light of this, she decided to make some changes starting at the end of April, vowing to shed pounds and low self esteem in an effort to reveal the skinny girl within. Her progress, once started, was fairly rapid, and she was pleased with her results. She trained herself to run, and eventually ran a race. But then, after the race was over and done with and she had no more short-term goal, something happened. She didn't feel the same motivation she had before. She'd lost more than 40 pounds, which she knew was no small feat, but then she was stuck. Her motivation had left, the wind had abandoned her once full and robust sails, and she sat drifting in place, lost in the sea. She still wasn't happy with the body she had, but she was more comfortable in her own skin than she had been when her journey. She couldn't help but wonder if this was part of her problem. She also thought that perhaps she simply needed to take a break from the heavy focus of actively trying to shed pounds - So she decided to try taking a more passive approach. Be more lenient, don't reall try to lose weight, just try not to gain any. She was mostly successful, but eventually she got the creeping sensation that if she didn't reign herself back in soon, she would spiral back to the place where she started, a place she had not wanted to go back to at all. Unfortunatley she seemed to have lost the passion she had once had, and really didn't know how to get it back in time to keep things from getting out of hand. I would like to say our heroine made it out of her slump and triumphed in the end, but I do not know the ending to this story as of yet. Only time can truly tell."

I really do think that the break I've been taking has been necessary, but I also know that I am in a VERY precarious place right now. For the last month/month and a half or so, I've simply had the goal of staying right around the same place as far as my weight goes. That's all I've wanted, and as long as I managed that I would consider myself successful in this time period. I would say that I've been successful in that, although I saw 230 on my scale this morning, which did not make me terribly thrilled after spending almost all of this time in the 224-227 range of things. Halloween candy is dangerous, in case you didn't already know.

I can't really consider this a faliur yet, though, because like I said... I've been here for long enough. I decided today that I really need to pull myself out of this ridiculous slump and get my head back around the weight loss game. I was happier when I was focused and paying attention to my eating and exercise. The last time I ran was the last time I posted a blog... A month ago. Almost to the day. This is so completely WRONG in so many ways, I can't even get into it right now.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the more lax approach to things I've been taking. More dinners out, almost no time spent on physical activity that would cause icky sweating and huffing and puffing... Hell, I stopped weighing my cereal in the mornings. This seems like such a trivial little thing, but it really counts. It's nice not having to work hard all the time to do the right things. It really is. But it absolutely has to stop. I know me. If I don't stop now, I will easily return to my miserable 266 pound ways.

DO. NOT. WANT.

I still don't feel like I know how to get my motivation back from all of this, but I've decided the best thing I can probably do for myself is start almost entirely from scratch. Treat it like a new weight loss journey. Who says it all needs to be one solid piece? As long as it gets done eventually, I don't really care. I'm just so sick to death of this scared feeling I've had recently. It's like I know I'm on the brink of all of my hard work falling out from under me, and I'm just scrambling mentally to understand and figure out how to pull myself back before my little ledge of hope crumbles beneath the weight I still have left to lose.

I miss my summer challenge. I really, really do. Those guys were astounding at keeping me going and motivated... Especially a shout out to Rochester, who I still like to talk to(Not that I've talked to you much at all these days... My bad. Definitely my bad.). But I can't exactly just go back to that... I have to keep going forward with this journey. I just hope I figure this out before it has a chance to degenerate into entirely old habits.

Dear Legs,

I know that what I did to you today was mildly shocking after two or three weeks of me pretty much not running at all of my own accord. I've gotten complacent and let you get used to sitting around doing nothing, with the exception of Step Aerobics on Tuesday and Thursday each week. Not the same as running, not even a little. I know that.

I finally made you go out and work today, and I felt you go, "Uhhhh... What??" I truly felt bad for you, legs. Why was I so mean to you as to stop running in the first place?? You were just fine when I was more or less in a decent routine and made you run at least twice a week. I know. I'm a bad leg-owner. But this must stop, for I still have a long way to go in my journey to look-awesomeness! We're about halfway there, legs, and you need to get me there somehow.

Now, don't go tricking yourself into thinking that will be the end of it. You don't get to take me to 175 pounds and just stop. We need to keep moving and stay active. You need to carry me around the world someday, legs, when they surely accept mom and us to go on The Amazing Race once I'm 21. You need to help keep me moving to keep this weight gone once we finish getting rid of it. You need to let me chase after my someday-in-the-distant-future kids. You need to do all of these things and more, and dammit you're going to be happy to take on the challenge.

So no aching, no complaining when I take you out to run again like I need to on Friday again. No excuses. You're going to do it, and you're going to like it again soon enough. We only did 20 minutes today because I was feeling generous, but you better believe I'm going to kick that time back up soon enough. I'm also gonna be on the lookout for a new race to look forward to, so you may as well get used to the idea now. It's gonna happen, so you best be ready for it!

Love Always,
Diana

((Was this really for my legs, or was it for myself? My answer... Is YES.))