And The Story Continues

If you know me, you already know these few facts. For others, let me get you up to speed:

Since 2009, I've been on a long, arduous journey of losing weight, trying to keep it off, and struggling to get down to what is considered healthy. I understand that while my goal at the moment is to be considered "normal" by BMI standards (something I don't believe I've ever been, to be honest), I also know that BMI isn't inclusive of all factors that affect weight, and that when I reach my visual "I am happy with how I look", it might not be within the normal range, persay. However, I'm digressing.

The point is that I'm an overweight person by physical standards. My mental state still sees me as obese some days, which is something that I know will probably always be there to some extent.

The other major point to this story is my boyfriend of the last 8 years [technically it isn't 8 years yet, but 8 days short. Close enough for me]. When we met, and for the majority of our relationship, he's been a rail, so to speak. Tall and skinny, and losing weight unintentionally. Since I already had self-esteem issues related to my weight, I projected some of that onto our relationship.

Why do I bring this up? Well, one of my things I'm trying to get better at in 2016 is to actually read all the shit I bookmark and note on my Todoist as "To Read Later". One of the articles I bookmarked sometime last year, or maybe even before that, was an article about being in a mixed-weight relationship and how others' expectations for what type of person you "should" date can affect your view of the relationship you're in. 

Don't get me wrong; it's a legit article. And mentally, I do need to work through some issues.

The main thing, and I have to keep reminding myself, is that's not us anymore.

I've lost weight; he's gained some. As of each of our last weigh-ins, respectively, we were less than a pound apart. And for a few days, he actually weighed more than me, which was kind of mind-blowing for my inner fat chick.

Which is where the title comes in. The Boy and I are no longer that trope of "fat chick and skinny guy." And while I'm thankful for our history, I'm really excited about the future that lays ahead--one where we both are trying to be healthier, for each other and ourselves.

Weight a Minute...This Again?

By my oh-so-clever title, you might have guessed that this post is about weight loss.
If you didn't, well...surprise!

So, for about a week now, I've been counting my calories again. And you know how stubborn you can get about not doing something because you know it will be hard?
Yeah, that's counting calories for me.

I know that monitoring my food intake will help with my weight loss. It makes perfect sense logically. It's the not-predictable factors that usually leave me questioning.
And I know my weight loss shouldn't be tied into focusing on the number. But honestly? I need something to track it.

So, last weekend (the holiday weekend) I set a goal of losing about 5 pounds by my beach trip weekend, so to be about 161.5 for Aug 8. I thought that was a feasible goal, allowing upcoming known big meals to be had without hindering me.
After a week? I'm already down to 163.1, leaving me 3.5 weeks to lose 1.6 pounds. Thankfully, I had a stretch goal of 160 in mind when I made the original goal, so we might have to try for that.

It's strange. Even though I should be using this to motivate myself more, that voice in the back of my mind is rearing its ugly head. It says This is just water weight...you're gonna plateau soon...you'll go back up.

The fact that I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop when it comes to losing weight is just indicative of how effective that nasty voice is with me. I'm used to failing when it comes to this.

Which, overall, doesn't make sense. At my largest, I was 215. Now, here I am, 50 whole pounds smaller, and I still can't tell myself that I can do this. Even after I gained 20 of that 50 back, and lost it again.

And trying to explain this mindset to someone who has never had to go through it is one of the hardest things I've ever done. I can't explain it.

Dusting Off the Ol' Blogaroo

So, I haven't written a blog post since MawMaw Alice passed away. How appropriate that on the day of her and PawPaw Edward's anniversary do I have the urge to write again.
(Side note: they got married 65 years ago, and celebrated 63 years before he passed away in Aug. of '12.)

A lot of things have happened, and yet it seems like more of the same old, same old.
I had resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't get a teaching job, and I have one more campus visit lined up for Friday. We'll see on that one--it's farther out, so I would have to live there. And while it's not terribly far, I'm used to living with B now, so it would be trying to not see him everyday anymore.

Work currently is...well, work. There are days when I hit a stride, and I like what I'm doing. And then there are days like yesterday when I remember that I'm really undervalued here by a lot of people.
Basically, I serve more like an admin. assistant. However, I don't know if some of the people here get that. Because of that, I often get loaded up with tons of things with little direction and the expectation that I have the time to do this asap.

Weight loss stuff has been challenging, to say the least. It's always been really hard for me to count calories, so I have been very very bad about doing so. I currently have a weight goal by a certain day (which I will talk about in a bit), so hopefully having an actual deadline rather than an abstract one will help.

In a few weeks, I'll be going to the Outer Banks for the first time, with B and some of our friends. I'm quite excited, because 1) it'll be my first summer beach trip in eons and 2) we haven't been able to all hang out a lot this summer.
Buying the swimsuit was a little challenging, mainly because I hadn't bought one in 7(!) years and I suffered a bit from the sticker shock. But thankfully, I've found one that both makes me feel good about myself and is comfortable to wear.

If y'all are nice, I might grace this blog with a picture-laden post. Maybe.

Day 21 (+8): Fat is as Fat Thinks

Last night, my sister Facetimed me, to talk about the snow hitting Charlotte, NC (where she lives) and shoot the breeze. We were cooking while talking, so when our respective meals were ready, it was time to hang up. I had just finished making my awesomely deliciously beef & deer burger and displayed it on screen. The way I cook (sear then steam), the burgers end up looking more like sliders.

Anyway, she said that they looked weird, "short and fat". I ducked down into the screen and said, "Just like me!" without thinking. It turned awkward, fast. Because, you see...I'm smaller than my sister at the moment. I'm thinking, Oh, shit, oh shit, I really didn't mean to make her feel bad. It's something I worry about, mainly because we haven't always been so congenial.
She responded with, "You're not fat."
I should have shut up right there. But that wouldn't be me, now would it?
I replied with, "Tell that to the BMI Index." Hoping, praying that would end it.
Nope. "You're not as fat as me," she replied.
Crap, crap, crap, what do I say? "I used to be."

And basically, that's how we ended our really nice conversation. Us talking about weight, and referencing how much she's gained/I've lost.

It got me thinking though.

1. I now know the other side of the coin, comparatively. I've mentioned it before, about how it bothered me back in high school when the skinnier girls would say how fat they were, and I would roll my eyes Liz Lemon style in response. But I get it a little bit better. There will be people that envy where we are, whether that's for the number on the scale or for the confidence in themselves. It's human nature. We should focus on ourselves alone, rather than comparing our size with the girl's size next to us. 
2. People who have known me for a long time see me as successful in weight loss, and I don't see myself as that. I'll get, "Oh, you've lost more weight!" And I'm thinking exactly how many lbs difference, if any, there is between our last meeting and that moment. Because I know. That's the thing about my weight loss--I know exactly what I weighed at what time of the year, when my ups and downs were. Sometimes I have to remind myself of where I was, to make myself feel better.
3. I still see myself as fat. Even though I know the BMI is crap, and I know that I am better, I'm still not where I want to be. I see my stomach and hips protruding in a muffin top. I see my huge thighs. 

Basically, it's all about perspective. We compare ourselves to whoever's around, whether they're on the TV screen or are the person sitting next to us on the bus.  We just need to think about it more in terms of what feels good for me. It we don't like what we see, take action, or find something you like about your body. For me, I look and feel how strong my muscles are, even beneath the flab. That helps me feel better, because it reminds me how strong I am and reinforces that I can do this. Because I can

Day 6: Riding the Rollercoaster--My Weight-Loss Journey (Pt. 2)

[If you haven't read Pt. 1, there you go, hyperlinked and everything.]

So, after getting back to about my high school graduation weight, I wanted to keep losing. And once Fall '09 rolled around, I was fairly good about losing steadily, just by not being a complete bum and watching my food intake.Well, as much as I could with a Taco Bell open late on campus within a 5 minute walking distance. And it continued into the following spring and summer. That summer was really crazy. I was eating sandwiches from home a lot, working out at least 3 days a week. I got down to about 170 at the beginning of my senior undergrad year. It stagnated that fall, but spring rolled around, and I managed to get to 160 by graduation, a loss that was kickstarted by my first attempt at actually counting the calories going into my body and the calories I was burning.

During all this time, it was a struggle. As I talked about before, I never really knew portion control. So when I started counting my calories for the first time, and saw how much I was really eating? Well, I felt embarrassed at the number. But the inverse became true as well--when I tried to eat within my budgeted amount, I felt like I was starving myself. I had to learn how deal with hunger pains. To not eat every time I felt the slightest but hungry. After being raised in a household where my parents had taught me to clean my plate, it was hard stopping.

But somehow, I managed to do it. And I felt awesome. Brett had been weight training with me (I did both cardio and weights during my workouts), so he had gained muscle mass, which had put him above 150. It felt great being within ten pounds of someone who was always so skinny. Disclaimer: I know that our respective ideal weights will be different, and that at 160, I still had a long way to go, but the small amount between us at that moment? Well, I would be lying if I didn't say that I didn't feel splendid.

Then grad school started.

To say that grad school derailed me off the tracks would me a major understatement. I was worried about not screwing up these kids, worried about my assignments for classes, worried about work, stressed to the max by my action research project, missing my boy like whoa [long-distance relationships suck, btw], and dealing with less than ideal living situations (let’s just say that we all were bad roommates to each other, and leave it at that). The only thing that would calm me down was a good Skype conversation with Brett, babysitting my favorite little girls, hanging out and not talking about school, and eating a nice, pre-made meal.
I ate a lot of take-out over those 12 months—some choices were better than others, but most were bad. The worst choice was hardly working out at all.

After graduating and moving to VA, I finally was able to stop and weight myself. I tipped in at 180 again.
While I have managed to lose the grad school weight, it’s still a major struggle. I do well, give my leniency, and then I’ll go up, feel bad, and go up, and down….you get the point.

I’m still on this crazy ride that is losing weight, because I want to look at myself in the mirror, and not make excuse for what I see. To feel comfortable in clothes that are more snug on my body. To match the me I see in my head. To like the physical as much as I like the person inside.

Day 5: The Scales of Self-Esteem--My Weight Loss Journey (Part 1)

Just finished my work-out, so I figure that I can talk about that. My weight-loss journey, that is.

Let’s start off this post with a fun fact: I actually was my mother’s smallest baby, weighing in at 6 lb. and some odd ounces. This was mostly due to her having pneumonia less than a month before I was born. So I didn’t stay small for long—she still says I was her butterball, because I plumped up quick. Though like most toddlers, I lost some baby fat. From about age 5 to age 8, I was a normal size. Probably between 8 and 9 was when I really just outgrew my peers weight-wise. I remember in 5^th grade (so about 11 years old) a classmate of mine was messing around, and pushed on the top of my desk. Normally, that makes it where the desk set goes up in the air. Since I was larger, it took more force. I still remember her response: “What do you weight, like 100 lbs?” And I know she didn’t mean to, but it hurt, mainly because I was 100 lbs. By the beginning of 7^th grade, I was about 120 lbs.

I continued to gain weight as I grew older, mainly because I didn’t know portion control. When we went to McDonald’s, I was getting adult meals as young as 10 years old. I often ate multiple servings at meals. I drank Coke and soda pretty much every day. So it’s no surprise that I was pushing 185, 190 when I graduated high school.

My weight was a big factor on my self-esteem, especially in high school. I played sports and would constantly here my teammates saying, “I’m so fat, ugh”, as they looked in the mirror at their 130 lbs bodies. On one of my more snarky days, I remember that a girl said she was as big as a planet, when she was clearly not. I muttered, “If you’re a planet, I’m a universe.” Part of me was jealous, but another part of me was glad I wasn’t deluded about my size. I knew I was overweight—I just wasn’t sure if I could ever do anything about it.

Flash forward to first semester of sophomore year in college. I’d been dating Brett for a while, so he knew about my self-esteem issues and tried to help motivate me. It wasn’t that effective, to be blunt. By January of 2009 as I went off to England for a semester abroad, I was about 215. But there, something clicked. I was homesick, it was cold, I didn’t like the way I looked…so, I started just dancing around my room in the flat. Not even like Zumba dancing, just moving to music for some time. And because of money, I wasn’t eating a huge amount, and some days, when I didn’t leave my room, I just didn’t get as hungry. So I lost 20 lbs by the beginning of May.

So, tomorrow, I’ll continue with part two of my weight-loss journey. And it’s definitely filled with ups and downs, I guarantee you that.