Halving Hadley - An Economist's Weight Loss Blog

Hot 100 Update #2

2010-10-08T11:11:00.002-04:00

Goal #1 Blog Five Days/Week: Well, this is number two for the week, so . . . didn't happen. I did, however start writing posts on both Wednesday and Thursday, so, partial credit?

Goal #2 Walk Every Day: I didn't on Sunday or Thursday, but 5/7 is not too bad all things considered. Partial credit again.

Goal #3 Career-y Stuff: I applied to a job! I've found a few others I want to apply to but I'm still struggling with writing cover letters. I'm still totally making progress.

So, not the week one would hope for, but it could've been worse. Progress!

Tuesday Weigh In

2010-10-05T12:10:00.002-04:00

254.0

In a word: yay! This is Tuesday, and thus my big official side of the blog weigh in. 254.0 means I lost 3.2 pounds this week, and have now lost precisely 10 pounds since I started. And it's a great weigh in. 3.2 pounds is above what I expect to lose in a week.

I went for a walk yesterday and Saturday, but I haven't really been exercising as I'd like. The lion's share of the credit goes to the relatively on point job I've been doing with food. While I did have a horrible Thursday night involving a pizza (and a Friday that, I admit, included pizza leftovers), I've been doing a solid job keeping calories to a minimum even on the pizza night. Other than Thursday (when I think I hit about 1800), I think most days I was right around the 1200 mark. All in all, numbers to be proud of.

The 254 weigh in also means I have now met my initial "super mini goal" of being 255 or less by the time I go down to North Carolina on Friday to visit one of my friends. This goal was originally invented as a stretch goal, and I'm glad I hit it. My mini goal is to get to 250 by 10/25 (which will mark having lost 5% of my starting weight), a goal I'm quite well placed for. I have four pounds to lose and 20 days to do it.

It will not, however, be as smooth sailing as it might seem. On Wednesday night, I'm going over to a friend's house for a movie and take out. Despite the added calories, this is worth doing: friends are important, and I don't want my diet to lead to locking myself away. A single meal is also easy enough to make up by just keeping the rest of the day low calorie.

This weekend, however, will be trickier. Friday after work I'm flying down to North Carolina to visit one of my best friends from college. He's an awesome guy, and he's currently down there getting his Ph.D. from Duke. If I were making a list of my favorite people in the world, he'd easily have a spot in the top three. So, going down to visit him is all kinds of awesome, and I'm very, very excited.

The visit, however, is going to be a diet disaster. He wants us to go to a Brazilian steakhouse (one of our occasional traditions out at Chicago), which, if you've never been to one, is basically a temple to meat. Just imagine a buffet, only the food is actually good and fresh and you don't need to stand up to get it. Waiters come around and bring you unlimited quantities of things like filet mignon wrapped in bacon. If delicious and gluttony had a child, it would be a Brazilian steakhouse. I'm not saying you should go, but if you ever say "screw the weight loss thing, I want a heart attack" a Brazilian steakhouse would be approximately the best way to make that choice. (For the comments: have any of you ever been to one?)

So, that's going to throw me off course. I'll talk more tomorrow about how I'm going to plan for the weekend and what strategies I'll use, but for now, I'm not going to stress. I lost 3.2 pounds this week, and hit my first mini goal. Today I think I get to be proud.

Hot 100 Update: Week 1

2010-10-01T17:10:00.002-04:00

257.6.

Yes, yes, that number is moving in the wrong direction. I've been home sick yesterday and today (excuses!) and I may've ordered pizza last night.

My first week of the Hot 100 has been, well, probably best described as a hot mess. Let's take a look:

Goal #1: Blogging 5+ days a week. BZZT! Didn't happen. Wasn't even close.

Goal #2: Walking outside everyday. Again, no dice. I walked on Tuesday, and that was short. Other than that, this was an almost impressive fail.

Goal #3: Not letting weight hold my career goals back, with a practical application of applying to jobs. Didn't happen at all.

So, bleh. Bleh, bleh, bleh. I'm terrible and lost and not motivated and fail. Such is life. My goal for the remainder of the day is to get a bunch of sleep (in the interest of getting better) and to not go hog wild on food. Hopefully tomorrow and next week will be more back on trackish.

Tuesday Weigh In

2010-09-28T14:51:00.003-04:00

257.2

This counts as my official weekly side of the blog weigh in. From now on, I weigh on Tuesdays. (Of course, me being me, I'll still start each post with my weight.)

I'm not faring too poorly in my wedding/weekend home recovery. This is .1 pounds lower than Friday, and 1.6 pounds lower than yesterday, when I shot up to 258.8. What's important is that I'm back into progress, and that my goals didn't get too horribly thrown off by the wedding.

Still, right now, I'm mostly feeling pretty blah. I'm squeaking along, but I'm just not accomplishing anything.

Let's be honest: the number one thing I need to do right now is apply to jobs. It's not that I don't like my job (I do!) but I've been here almost two years and it's time to move on. I need to get something that pays more and where I'll have more challenges and more opportunity for advancement. My current job is stale, and it's time for me to move on.

So, I've settled that. And I've actually found two jobs I would love to have and think I have a decent shot at. (Well, one I would love love love love to have, and one that would be a solid choice and improvement over my current position.) I've worked a lot on my resume and think it's currently at a place I like. But I just can't write the damn cover letters and get my applications out the door. I don't know what's wrong with me.

One of the jobs (the one I'd love love love) is in Denver. I have spent literally hours online looking at apartments I could get if I moved to Denver. I could get a place as nice, if not nicer, for about half of what I'm paying to live in DC. I've also spent hours looking at cars, dreaming about what my priorities would be if I were to get a car, debating if I'd buy purely from my savings or if I'd go wild and finance a nicer one than savings could buy. (Spoiler alert: I'm pretty cautious with money and there's approximately a zero chance I'd take out a loan to buy a nicer car.) Basically, I've just been daydreaming. Sure, I suppose it's better than, you know, eating, but it's really just not productive.

What I need to do is focus. Apply to jobs. Work out. Kick ass at my current job. Heck, even blog. I just need to not spend forever thinking about what I'd do if I got a new job without, you know, actually doing anything about it.

Of Weddings and Weight Goals

2010-09-24T12:32:00.002-04:00

257.3

Holy progress batman! Since I'm not going to be able to weigh in tomorrow or Sunday (traveling for a wedding), this is going to have to go down as my weigh in. It's a loss of a very impressive 6.7 pounds for the week. In a word, nice.

The next weigh in that I'm planning on putting on the side of the blog is Tuesdays. I know, I know, I started on a Saturday, so Saturday should by normal logic be my official big "side of the blog" weigh in date. Let's be honest: Saturday is a terrible weigh in day. In addition to being one of the two days I'm least likely to blog (tied with Sunday), it's also the day I'm most likely to be away and least likely to have access to a scale. Saturday has all the qualities of a terrible weekly weigh in day, and it will not be mine.

What will? Tuesday, of course! I love Tuesday for weigh ins. 80% of this is purely sentimental, of course. I weighed in for months and months on Tuesday when I first started this blog, and with it I dropped over 40 pounds. There are other reasons why I think Tuesday makes a great weigh in day: it's close enough to the weekend to keep you on your toes, but far enough away that you have a smidgen of time to get rid of any sodium induced bloat. It's unaffected by most holidays and long weekends, meaning you're less likely to be away from a scale. It's a great weigh in day, and most importantly, it's *my* weigh in day.

I mentioned, yesterday, that I had weight goals that I was keeping separate from the Hot 100 challenge. And I do.

Sort of.

Obviously my intention, broadly speaking, is to lose weight, preferably at a reasonable clip. When I first started on the 18th at 264, I set myself up with what I thought to be an extremely ambitious "super mini goal" of being 255 by Friday, October 8th, when I'm flying down to North Carolina to visit a friend for the weekend. On that day, it required me losing a rather tricky 3.15 pounds a week: more than I'd normally shoot for, but I knew I'd get some help from first week losses. I also set myself up with what I viewed as a more reasonable mini goal of getting down to 250, which would mean having lost a smidge over 5% of my starting weight, by Monday, October 25th. That originally required me to lose a hard but reasonable 2.65 pounds a week.

Good, stretch yourself goals, right? Not so much any more. For 255 by October 8th, I now only need to lose 1.15 pounds a week. For 250 by the 25th, I now only need to lose 1.65 pounds a week. These are not the things ambition is made of.

Which might lead one to say "change your goals." The thing is, however, you don't really want to spend all your time shooting at a moving target. Part of weight loss has to be occasionally succeeding. I set my targets, and now it's time to head towards them, wimpy though they may currently seem.

My official, near term goals, therefore, are to be 255 pounds by Friday, October 8th and to get down to 250, marking a 5% loss of my starting weight, by Monday, October 25th.

What are we looking at long term? Well, my best friend from college is getting married this June (unfortunately, to a guy I despise) and I am on the hook to be a bridesmaid. Her mother is sewing the bridesmaid dresses for us, and has asked us to get measured and send the information to her by February 1st. This is going to be insanely tough for me emotionally, and I'd like to be as low as I can by then.

Depending on how things are going, I may end up just telling my friend's mom that I've been losing weight and am probably going to lose more before the wedding and just see how she wants to deal with it. If it means I need to get the dress professionally made closer to the actual wedding or even step down as a bridesmaid, that's life. If push comes to shove, I'm not going to put my life/health on hold for four months because of someone else's wedding (especially a wedding I think is such a terrible idea).

To get back from the bridesmaid tangent, what all this means is that February 1st is a goal date of mine, although I don't actually yet have a goal number. To get to 220, I'd need to lose almost exactly 2 pounds a week from now until then. To get to 210, I'm looking at 2.5. And for 200, I'd need an average of 3, which is almost certainly out of range.

I think my current plan is to shoot for 255, and then 250, as quickly as I reasonably can. From there, I'm likely to set a goal for either 237 (a bit over 10% of my starting weight) or 233 (no longer morbidly obese, and historically a big trip up point for me). The date will be determined by how soon I hit 250. If I do 237, my next goal is 233 (clearly), and from there I'll shoot for 220 and/or figure out where I can be by February.

This first week is the easy week. Weight falls off like water. Being at home tonight and Sunday, and dealing with food at the wedding tomorrow, are going to be my first real challenges. Let's meet them with aplomb.

In other news: 25th Happy Birthday to Mae Flowers of A Journey to Thin! She's amazing and has lost over 60 pounds.

Hot 100

2010-09-23T17:41:00.001-04:00

258.8

Not bad. I'm down another .5 pounds day to day, and I've dropped an awesome 5.2 pounds since I started.

As of today, there are exactly 100 days left in 2010. Steve of Log My Loss is running, as he did last year, a Hot 100 challenge for the last 100 days of 2010. I, as I did last year, intend to participate. In the interest of mixing things up, this year I intend to, you know, actually finish the challenge instead of puttering out mid-November.

This year doesn't have last year's requirements that all goals be measurable, achievable, and entirely within your control. So it's just, basically, to make three or more goals that can last you till January, and to write about them each week.

1. Blog 5+ days a week. Blogging helps me stay focused and motivated. It forces me to spend a portion of each day really *thinking* about what I'm doing and why. Blogging help keeps me on track, and so I shall blog.
2. Go for a walk outside every day. Yes, even if it's hot or cold or raining or snowing or I'm feeling under the weather and really would rather not. Every damn day, I need to go outside and spend some time trudging through the fresh air. I can do it.
3. Act as if my weight can't hold my career back by doing what I should be doing and applying to new jobs. This might not seem quite like it fits in with a weight loss challenge, but for me it does. I've been using feeling bad about my weight as an excuse not to apply for jobs, and I shouldn't be. While yes, studies do show that obese people are less likely to be hired, there is no chance I'll ever get hired for a job I don't apply for. Ideally, I'd like to find a new job before this challenge is over, and if that happens I'll update with a new goal.

So, those are my challenge goals. You'll notice they're not quite weight centric. The only one that has a direct effect on the scale is #2, and even that's a pretty weak one. A walk of indeterminate length and intensity, even every day, is not the stuff big losses on the scales are made of.

There's a reason for this. It's not that I don't have lots of weight related goals: I do, and I'll probably discuss them in the upcoming future. But the issue is, I already have those. Those wouldn't be challenge goals, they would just be me continuing along my merry way and picking up challenge credit as I went.

So, those are my Hot 100 goals. If you want to try to close out the last 100 days of the year with a bang, it's not too late to join! They're accepting participants until October 1st. Just head over to Log My Loss for all the details.

The trick is to get back up

2010-09-22T10:13:00.002-04:00

Well, it's been a long time since I wrote. Too long. And my weight's gone up. More than it should have and more than I'd like to admit, but not more than I will admit.

And so Saturday, I weighed myself, I recommitted, and I strolled through the blogosphere. Jo is in Onederland! Monica got a job! (That was old news, but I was reading through the archives and saw a mention to coworkers, plus you can never read too much of Monica's blog.) Katie J. is making all sorts of progress and now has the most beautiful picture as her icon! 266 is at a normal BMI! And Sue aka Mrs. Fatass is having the birthday celebration to end all birthday celebrations.

And me? Well, on Saturday I weighed 264 pounds.

Yes. 264 pounds. That's only 14 pounds lower than my original starting weight. How miserable.

But at the same time, in some ways, it also wasn't all that bad. I'd kept up a loss of just over 5% of my starting weight for a year and nearly two months. I work in health policy: the literature on obesity is bleak. Keeping 5% of my starting weight off for over a year actually makes me, statistically speaking, a success story. Imagine that.

Of course, that's not the level off success I want. I want Learning to be Less levels of success. (Who, by the way, is pregnant and due in just over a month. Congrats!) I want Diane from Fit to the Finish levels of success. I want to be what they are: namely, the awesomest kind of statistical aberration there is.

In my last post, on the last try, I said "Falling is okay, though. The trick is to get back up. And I'm going to get back up."

Well, I'm back up. I've been going for walks. (My gym shut down, and I'm not really up for finding a new one just yet.) I've been eating well. And I've been steadily progressing down down down the scale.

Saturday, 9/18: 264
Sunday, 9/19: 262
Monday, 9/20: 261.5
Tuesday, 9/21: 261

And finally today, Wednesday, 9/22: 259.3. 4.7 pounds down, a bunch to go.

Blizzards and Weight Loss Do Not Go Together

2010-02-11T10:26:00.002-05:00

Ah, blizzards and weight Loss. They're certainly no peas and carrots.

Since Friday at noon, when I got out of work early because of the impending snowstorm, to, well, right this very moment, where I still don't have work today and haven't since. While I may have work tomorrow, it's less than certain. If the metro's still not fully operational, then the federal government will close, and I, too, will have another day to fill up with nothing but bad habits.

It's been a disaster. Really.

I do well with my diets during weekdays because I'm out of the house for work and bring only a limited amount of food with me. During the weekends, I do well because I exhaust myself with gym trips and walks around the city, far from my kitchen. And then there are blizzards. Where I can't go for walks because crossing the streets is terrible, and after 40 minutes outside my boots are soaked wet and out of commission for the rest of the day. And I can't go to the gym, because it's alternatively closed and separated by a block with a vacant parking lot that nobody's even thought of cleaning.

So, I haven't been doing well. It's my own fault. I got thrown out of my element and out of my routine, and I've let it defeat me.

Falling is okay, though. The trick is to get back up. And I'm going to get back up.

I just hope hope hope this storm that might come on Monday turns out to be a bust.

Yeesh.

2010-02-05T09:24:00.005-05:00

Still 237.5

DC is in the midst of preparing itself for a Snowmageddon, so last night I went to the grocery store after work to stock up on a few essentials to carry me through the storm.

A reasonably common sight on street corners in DC is vendors hawking "Street Sense" which is a non-profit newspaper that deals with homelessness and is sold by the homeless as a source of income. While sometimes it can be a little "I'm just trying to walk don't shout at me," in general I've always thought it's a perfectly decent non-profit and respected their work. The vendors generally aren't rude or obstructive, and won't put pressure on you or bother you if you're waiting for a light at the same corner and have indicated you're not interested.

I say generally. There's one guy who hawks the paper on P street between 14th and 15th, right outside of CVS and next to the Whole Foods I go to. He's always been very aggressive, rude, not like the other vendors. So, you know, not a good guy, but whatever, I have my headphones in and can just zip right by. Last night, as I did so, he shouted out something along the lines of "Hey [Lady? Blondie? I couldn't tell] you know I looooooooooove big beautiful women."

Fuck you. (Not you guys!) Seriously. I do not need to be called fat on my way to Whole Foods. What a douche. I half wanted to give him a New York Salute, but instead just walked on by because, you know, I'm not an asshole like he is. I am officially NEVER buying Street Sense again. And I'm going to tell my friends never to buy Street Sense again either. Fuck him.

Needless to say, this made me a little mad. And you know, whatever, I am fat. I get it. I lost 40 pounds. I'm working on losing more. But someone essentially shouting at me on the street "Hey Fattie"? Not helpful.

Brushing it off as best I can, I go into Whole Foods. It's chaotic, at best. I manage to get fruits and veggies, milk, and get myself in one of the enormous lines. (They were actually wrapped around the aisles, it was crazy.) Right in front of me was a mother with two small children, one in a large stroller, and the other a girl of about 5 or so. Although the mother and I briefly commiserated about the length of the lines at the beginning, DC's a city, people don't really talk in the lines, and she wasn't all that comfortable in English. (It seemed like she was speaking Chinese to her children, but if you told me it was another Asian language I'd believe you.)

As I stand around waiting, I sometimes like to stand on my tip toes just to see how long I can hold it. The five year old, it seemed, was amazed by this and asked me how I did it. I showed her. This was about a 30-45 minute line, so we had plenty of time to kill. She and I ended up going through my basket food by food, with me saying "do you like bananas?" and her replying "I like bananas." After we'd been through the 12 or so items, I went into "do you like cheese more than strawberries?" and whatnot. Then I did the only economist trick that's vaguely cool to young children, by proclaiming that I knew she liked cheese more than bananas, even though she hadn't told me, because she liked cheese more than strawberries and strawberries more than bananas. Ah, to be 5 and still impressed by transitive properties and revealed preferences.

And we waited and waited.

She started asking me the same questions I asked her: "Do you like green beans?" "Do you like tomatoes?" and on and on.

And then, as we waited more, she pointed at my tummy and said "Do you have a baby in there?"

Yeesh.

I don't blame the (adorable) little kid. She obviously didn't know any better. And she certainly didn't know I'd just got called fat by the homeless guy outside.

But still, yeesh.

Still, I suppose it's all for the better. I'd hate to lose all the weight before I at least once endured an erroneous question about pregnancy.

Thursday Weigh In

2010-02-04T11:09:00.002-05:00

237.5

Well, today's the big official side of the blog weigh in. I am, unfortunately but predictably (I'll get into that part later) up .4 pounds from yesterday. I'm also, however, down 2.7 pounds for the week, which to me is a definite win. 2.7 pounds in a week is a strong showing by almost any definition. I've now lost a full 7 pounds since I came back exactly 2 weeks ago, and 40.5 pounds since I began this whole adventure in July.

So, why was it predictable that I was up .4 today? Two reasons. First, I didn't workout last night. Second: I had easy mac in addition to my dinner. At 220 calories, it's not really that bad for you, but the sodium in it is just insane. I've been in the habit of eating relatively low sodium foods of late, so one processed food and I tend to see a big jump. So, it is what it is, and I don't think it's a real gain.

Okay, it's getting late and I've been trying to write this post forever, and just keep filling it with negative nancy stuff. I lost 2.7 pounds this week. That's great! I'm back over the 40 pounds lost mark. That's great too!

So today, no nitpicking. I'm happy with my progress, and that's that.

Worth It

2010-02-03T12:48:00.002-05:00

237.1

The weigh in this morning was very nice, but I don't want to curse myself for tomorrow by talking about it too much. Still, I'm definitely moving in the right direction, and seemingly at a pretty nice clip.

Before I get into anything else, Kimmers of 100 in 28 has officially lost 100 pounds! YAY Kimmers! I'd encourage you all to go over there and congratulate her.

I did, in fact, wake up this morning and go to the gym. (So did Lynn! Go Lynn!) Sure, I didn't hop out of bed at 6:30 as one might like, but I managed to schlep my way over there—through 3 inches of snow—and put in 20 minutes run-walking on the treadmill. Not a huge workout, but if I give myself credit for the 1.4 mile roundtrip walk there, it's about a million times better than not waking up early. I am incredibly proud of myself for getting up, and hope to make a habit of it. I'm still planning on hitting the gym after work tonight. For my lunchtime walk, I'm hoofing it over to the charity to drop off the clothing I'm donating. It's about a mile and a half roundtrip, which is about half of my normal lunch walk, but since I'm going to be carrying lots of bags and it's for a good cause, I'm still giving myself credit.

For the eggs, I ended up just going with two plain scrambled eggs. They ended up being incredibly delicious even without the cheese. I loved all the good egg recipes in the comments! I may try out a few of them as I work through the remaining 7. And to answer a few other assorted questions from the comments:

I do have a DVR and in fact record Biggest Loser as I watch AI live, I just don't want to put off watching Biggest Loser a whole day since I'm almost certain to get spoiled and find out who got booted.

You can technically freeze the Purdue perfect portions things, but whenever I do it just doesn't turn out right. Freezing meat is somehow still above me. Which is actually impressive considering that all that's involved is, you know, putting it in the freezer.

I do have (and love!) Trader Joe's. I eat their organic vanilla yogurt every morning and it's like the best thing ever. I love their salad mixes, their apples, their baby carrots, and use their whole wheat as my go to bread. All their stuff is so cheap and ridiculously delicious. I loooove Trader Joe's. (I love Whole Foods too. I begrudgingly accept that Safeway must be a part of my grocery store rotation, but still hate it with the fire of a thousand suns.)

In other news, I'm wearing contacts today! Two weekends ago (right after I got back to blogging/weight loss) I saw the eye doctor and decided to go for it. I'd considered it before because I hate the way I look in glasses—every pair feels like it makes my face look fat, which could just be because my face is fat, but still makes me emo—but I'd just never been able to get over the fear of touching my eyes. I think part of me just accepted that I was ridiculously unattractive anyway, so what was the difference between a fat girl and a fat girl with glasses?

All of which makes wearing contacts (and learning how to put them in) a big deal for me. The first time I was able to walk outside and see without a pane of glass separating me from the world was just amazing. And while I've worn the contacts on the weekends, today's the first weekday where I had enough energy and enough will to get them in on a work day. I'm so, so happy I did.

So, so, so much of this journey is just accepting that you're worth something. I'm worth work outs, I'm worth eating healthy. And you know what? I'm even worth touching my eyes for. (And that, blog buddies, is friggin' terrifying.)

For the comments: do you wear glasses or contacts or none of the above? And if you're feeling inspirational and have a strong tolerance for cheesiness, what's one thing you're going to do (or did!) today because you're worth it?

A Groundhog Day Resolution

2010-02-02T12:27:00.003-05:00

238.2

Another day, another .4 pounds down.

Yesterday was, in a word, solid. My eating was absolutely on point: the food I'd brought into work for breakfast/lunch/snacks, and a chicken breast and salad for dinner. Exercise was 100% acceptable: an hour walk during lunch and an hour on the elliptical after work. I'm not yet one of those awesome people of awesomeness who does early morning workouts, but I still give myself full credit for both a lunchtime walk and a regular workout, with a few bonus points for pulling out a full 60 minutes on the elliptical rather than wussing out after 45.

Today, I'm mostly feeling exhausted. I went into bed a bit before 9:30, but I wasn't able to fall asleep until well after midnight. I've been having a lot of problems sleeping of late, and it's the most annoying thing ever. I want to be able to fall asleep at a decent hour mostly so I can wake myself up at 6:30 to go workout. But I can't fall asleep early. And then I can't wake up early. And thus the bad cycle of badness continues.

I'm tempted to say, here and now, my Groundhog Day resolution is to wake up tomorrow and go in for a morning workout. But tonight has both American Idol (my gosh can they get to Hollywood week already? I'm so over auditions) and Biggest Loser, so going to bed early is definitely not happening. But maybe just maybe I'll be able to power through and wake up early tomorrow, even if I can't go to bed early tonight.

Okay, yeah, let's do it. My Groundhog Day resolution is to workout tomorrow morning before work. No excuses.

In other news, I've run through my Purdue perfect portions chicken breasts and am now faced with the difficult problem of making an actual decision about what I want for dinner. (Whenever I buy the Purdue perfect portions I pretty much have to eat them for 5 days nonstop because there are 5 pieces of chicken in the package and the sell-by date is always like 5 or 6 days ahead of when I buy them, no matter what. It's annoying because it's such a commitment of "guess I know what I'm eating all week" but it does make things easier.) I have 9 eggs that expire on the 8th, so I'm thinking I should do something with those, but everything I come up with is way more calorific than the 130 calorie piece of chicken I've been making the centerpiece of my dinners. 2 scrambled eggs would work, but I'd want cheese, and then I end up at 230 calories. 1 sunny-side up egg is also viable, but that needs toast, and then I'm at 215 calories. Decisions, decisions.

For the comments: how do you like your eggs? Happy Groundhog Day!

230s!

2010-02-01T13:11:00.002-05:00

238.6

Technically, I re-entered the 230s on Sunday, but today is my first time posting about it, so yay 230s! Thus far I like them much better than the 240s.

I'm .6 pounds away from reclaiming my 40 pounds lost trophy, which is pretty exciting. This is also the first time since I've started back up that my BMI has been 40.whatever instead of 41.whatever. There are tons of baby markers of progress that I could give you (Over 5 pounds lost since I started again! More than halfway to my mini goal!), but the basic point is that the weigh in this morning is a pretty good one.

I originally had all sort of outdoors adventures planned for this weekend, but unfortunately DC got hit by a nasty snowstorm which forced me to cancel most of my plans. Instead, inspired by all of Monica's do-gooding last week, I decided to sort out all my too big clothes and see if I could find a good place to donate to. Luckily, there's a women's shelter not too far from my house that does really great work--including health care, education, training, and job placements and all sorts of support--that takes some donations, and almost all the stuff I wanted to give away was on the list. (Interestingly enough, they right now will only accept clothing in larger sizes, which I suppose isn't that surprising when you think of the strong connection between obesity and socioeconomic status: donors are statistically more likely to be thin, and those using the donations are more likely to be fat. Which isn't to say there aren't exceptions: see, for example, me.) Anyway, I'm overjoyed that I've found a place that will be able to make good use of all my nice but too big suits and work sweaters. They were even able to take my casual pants and shirts. I'll be dropping the donations off on Wednesday during my lunch hour.

Overall, I'm mostly in a good and productive mood. There are some nagging doubts and issues that I really ought to blog about, but if I keep trying to write then I won't be able to go for my lunchtime walk, and that would clearly be no good.

So, off I go, into the cold and (now slushy) snow to get a bit of fresh air. Enjoy the afternoon, blog buddies. (For the comments: what are you going to do today that's outside?)

Some guidelines and goals

2010-01-28T12:29:00.000-05:00

Weight: 240.2

Today marks one week of being back. I've lost an excellent 4.3 pounds, which is just .2 pounds shy of half the 9 pounds I gained being away.

I'm debating whether or not I should put it as my big side of the blog weigh in. On the one hand, I started on a Thursday so this is a week later and should be my next weigh in. Just going by normal standards, this should be the day.

But, Tuesdays are my weigh in day. For months I weighed in on Tuesdays. I like Tuesdays. They're close enough to the weekend to keep the pressure up, and you're less likely to be away then you would on a Monday. And they're just my weigh in day.

On the other hand, I know I won't be able to weigh in on at least one Tuesday next month since I'm going to be on the road, so maybe I should just suck it up and stick with Thursdays for the time being.

I know I owe you guys a post on serious stuff, but today I just want to do today is set out some straightforward goals for myself:

1. There's no reason not to take the stairs down when I leave my apartment. I live on the 8th floor and taking the stairs down is both easy and smart. Unfortunately, I can't take the stairs up: you can't open the doors from inside the stairwell on any floor but the lobby and basement. (For the record, how lame is that? Shouldn't it be a fire hazard or something?)
2. I need to really write down what I'm eating. When I originally started this blog/diet, I wrote down every morsel. Along the way, I got comfortable enough judging my food and tracking calories in my head that I stopped. For now, I need to write things down. I'm not assigning myself a definite calorie limit, but I know around where I want to be.
3. Lunch time walks are one of the keys to success. Going out in the fresh air and getting a bit of midday exercise not only burns calories, it makes me feel infinitely better for the rest of the afternoon. At least 4 days a week, I want to go for a walk during lunch.
4. The most important thing I can do to get myself to the gym is to not sit down after getting home from work. If I change immediately, grab a bottle of water and head off, I get there. The moment I sit down, my chances of heading out the door plummet. As of now, I'm going to plan to hit the gym at least 4 work days a week, and hopefully on the weekends as well.

For now, those are my basic guidelines for staying on the right track.

Two days ago I made plans to fly out to visit my best friend from college in February, and I'm really, really excited to see her since we haven't been able to get together for a little over a year. Literally a few hours after we finalized the trip and I bought the tickets, her boyfriend proposed. So, come the weekend of February 20th, I'll not only be seeing her for the first time in a year, I'll be meeting her fiancée for the first time ever. A little nerve-wracking, to say the least. It's a little over three weeks away, so nothing drastic is going to happen, but I'd like to make some decent progress by then. If I can lose 4.7 pounds by then, I'll at least be as thin as I was before I got lost, and if I can drop 7.2 pounds by then, I'd no longer be morbid for the visit. Who knows if I'll be able to make either of those goals (I really should be able to make the first and the second is within reason), but now is as good a time as any to set them up.

It's highly unlikely I'll be at my goal weight to walk down the aisle for my brother's wedding this summer, but maybe, just maybe, I'll be there by the time I need to be a bridesmaid in hers the summer after.

Work out joy and a changing equation

2010-01-26T13:46:00.002-05:00

Weight: 240.5

I had a fabulous workout yesterday. I went to the gym pretty much straight after work, and did 45 minutes on the elliptical. But it wasn't your run of the mill "chug along on the elliptical." It was me, giving everything I had and going faster and harder than I thought I could. It was the sort of workout I hadn't had in a while, and it felt great. I'm so glad I'm working out regularly again, and I haven't stopped beaming since I left the gym last night.

Despite yesterday's slight melancholy and yearning over a past I couldn't change, I do think on the whole I'm quite a bit happier when I'm on track and losing weight. A feeling of joy just started on Thursday, shortly after I returned to blogland and the world of the on-track, and it by and large hasn't subsided.

I've spoken in the past about what we're really saying when we embark on a diet/lifestyle change/weight loss effort/whatever you want to call it:

What "I'm on a diet" says, essentially, is "I was wrong." It says somehow, along the way, I messed up. Maybe I thought I enjoyed food more than the idea of being thin, maybe I was stressed and let impulse get the better of me, maybe I was just plain lazy, but what I did, was wrong. Being fat was a wrong choice. I messed up. And right now, I'm fixing my error.

(Side note: reading that post back I think it may be the best post I've written here. In general I'm not wild about my writing, but I do from time to time write things that I think are good, and that post is definitely one I like. Best or not, it's certainly one of my favorites.)

And I think what I said there is true. It does say that. But it also says something else.

The flip side of what "I'm on a diet" says is "I'm worth investing in." Yes, mistakes were made, but I'm worthwhile, I'm worth changing. That there's value in me, and that I'm worth protecting and taking care of. It's saying my future and my health are worth whatever pains I must endure along the way. It's not just saying the short term suffering is worth the long term rewards, it's saying I am worth far more than cramps or hunger pains or delicious delicious cheesecake.

I'm going to talk about this more tomorrow: there's a lot to be said here, about faith in yourself, about marginal costs, and about what side of the equation flips for the "I'm worth dieting" vs. "no, I'd really just have the pizza."

In the mean time, though, as my head churns the analysis and philosophy of it all, I'm still smiling. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to be exercising. I'm happy to be eating healthy. And I'm happy that it's the season where the grocery store sells huuuuuge strawberries that I just absolutely love.

For the comments: what's one thing you're happy about today?

Lost Time

2010-01-25T12:02:00.003-05:00

Weight: 241.2

I'm mixed on that number. On the one hand, some part of me keeps saying "That's good! You're down 3.3 pounds from when you started!" But, I was 240.7 on Saturday, and 240.9 on Sunday, so I'm not crazy about the reverse progress of the past two days. I just need to keep reminding myself that 3.3. pounds would be insanely good for a normal week, and that I should stop thinking about it in terms of a "first week back" thing.

One of the things I'm having a really hard time with at the moment is not kicking myself too much for missing as much time as I did. I've found myself looking, almost jealously but more with an anger at myself, at the progress my compatriots have made. Seeing so many posts and pictures I missed over the intervening weeks . . . it's just hard.

In about 10 weeks, I gained 9 pounds. To be fair, I don't think that's actually a fair accounting. Even though my absolute lowest weigh in was 235.5, my real weight was closer to 237 or 238. I've also been able to knock off the first 3 pounds of that 244.5 so quickly that it clearly wasn't all real weight. If I'm honest, in the 10 weeks I was away, I probably gained about 6 or so real honest to god pounds of fat.

What bugs me the most though isn't the reasonably small amount of weight I ended up gaining. It's all the weight I didn't lose while I was breaking. I probably could've lost about 15 pounds in that time. I'd be in the 220s, not morbid, and probably within spitting distance of the 210s. Instead I'm struggling to reenter the 230s, and facing a long road until I can drop the damnable morbid label.

However, all is not lost. As I was reading through archives trying to catch up with what had been going on with everyone, I stumbled upon this great piece of wisdom by S. at Ethereal Endeavor: "One thing my weight loss adventures have taught me is that just because I missed a day (or four) doesn't mean that I should throw in the towel."

A lost week (or 10) isn't great. But it's better than a lost year.

I'm not as far as I wanted to be right now, but I'm also a lot farther than I would've been if I hadn't undertaken this journey in the first place. 241.2 isn't fabulous, but it's a heck of a lot better than 278. The best, the only thing I can do right now is to keep on going and keep making progress. I'll get there eventually.

In other news, Erin of the XXL Files very kindly gave me an award on Friday!

Thank you Erin! I promise I'll consider playing by the rules and doing the award thing tomorrow. In the mean time, it was incredibly nice of you to hook me up with blog love after I'd been back such a short time. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Onward and downward

2010-01-22T12:02:00.001-05:00

Thank you all so much for the warm welcome back! It definitely feels good to have returned to blogland.

I did indeed go to the gym last night, and it was nice to be back after quite a few weeks away. I only put in 20 minutes on the elliptical, but it was much better than nothing. Combined with the hour walk during lunch yesterday, and the mile roundtrip walk to/from the gym, I think I got in some pretty solid activity.

I weighed in this morning at 242.7, which is 1.8 pounds less than yesterday. The scale tends to move quickly in the first few days of a new/renewed diet, but it's still nice to see. Getting rid of the easy weight is always a nice way to kickstart a diet.

The question, of course, is how much easy weight I have to lose. I'm hoping a good portion of the 240s will end up being fluff and water weight and that I'll be back in the 230s in no time, but things of course don't always turn out as we might hope.

Anyway, a few "While I was aways" just to get you guys updated:

While I was away, I finished my Arabic class. I got an A! I'm really happy with it and enjoy the language, but I think I'm not going to do Arabic this semester and instead focus on losing weight. I simply don't think it's smart to spend 10 hours a week (6 class, 4 homework) on it at the moment.

While I was away, a big paper that I'd spent a lot of time on at work finally came out. It's been received very well, and I got thanked in the footnotes! I was, I won't lie, pretty damn proud.

While I was away, my dormant blog managed to attract its first marketing email. It's from LA boxing, offering me a few months of membership in return for telling you guys if I liked it or not (well, probably it's "tell you if I liked it, say nothing if I didn't"). They sent it to me about a week ago, and since I just checked this email account, I just got it and replied.

While I was away, I turned 24! The side of my blog has now been updated accordingly. Part of me is debating if I should just rock "mid-twenties."

While I was away, I missed you guys a lot. And since I've been back, it's been great catching up.

Right now, I'm optimistic and happy. I had a pretty good 2009, and I'm looking to make 2010 even better. Onward and downward!

The Return of Lunch Time Walks

2010-01-21T16:29:00.002-05:00

I took a walk today during my lunch hour. I used to do it almost every day back when I was blogging and genuinely focused on trying to lose weight. As I was out there in the not too terribly cold fresh air, I knew what I needed to do. I've known what I've needed to do for a while now. I'd just been too terribly scared to do it.

I needed to come back.

Slightly before Thanksgiving, I made a few food mistakes. At home for the holidays and my birthday, I made more. And between the icky gains on my scale and the fact that I just couldn't really control myself around food, I became too afraid to come back and own up to my failures. Not coming back immediately was a mistake.

While I was away, for most of the time, I kept yearning and thinking about going back. I silently visited some of the blogs of people I just couldn't let go of—Katie J., Jo, Monica, the kittehs, Actual Scale, Learning to Be Less, and 266, just to name a few—but avoided my own like it was toxic. I winced every time I typed anything starting with an "H" into my browser.

From November to late December, my weight hovered in between about 238 (what it initially jumped up to) and 240. I kept going to the gym, but not with the regularity I had been. I kept hoping that on my own I would find the strength to get the numbers lower, that I'd be able to come back here and post some number, any number that was lower than the 235.5 I left. As late as the beginning of January, I had a weigh in at 237.7.

And then there was the rest of January.

My weight this morning was 244.5.

These past three weeks have been entirely and ridiculously out of control. And it stops now.

I'm heading home from work in just a few minutes. I'm going to go home, change, and head right off to the gym. When I come back, I'll toss out what junk food I've accumulated these last few weeks, make myself a healthy dinner, and come say my hellos in blog land.

I've missed you guys, and I've missed making progress. It's time to get this weight loss show back on the road.

Tuesday Weigh In

2009-11-10T11:50:00.002-05:00

Weight: 235.5
BMI: 40.42

I'm 2.5 pounds away from not being morbidly obese. Two and a half pounds. Wow. It makes me shiver just thinking about it.

When I started this blog, I said in my very first post that the goal I was using to drive myself was the idea of not being morbidly obese:

My name is Hadley. I'm morbidly obese. On July 7th, when I started my weight loss journey, I weighed 278 lbs. I'm down a bit now--I hit a new low of 270.7 yesterday--but not by much. I have a lot of weight to lose. I need to hit 145 to no longer be overweight. 145 lbs is, essentially, a world, 58 leagues, four languages and two centuries away, so I won't be focusing on that number much. Sure, yeah, it would be nice and maybe I'll get there eventually. For now though, it's such an alien concept I can't even really focus on it.

So I don't. I focus on not being morbid.

Morbidly obese is one of those icky, icky terms. It's one of those shock terms. Scary words. A scary concept. And yet, also day-to-day reality for me and millions of others.

Right now, my goal is just to not be morbid.

For that, I need to get to 233 pounds. That's a trim 45 pounds away from my starting weight and 37.7 pounds from my current low. It's pretty far away, there's no doubt about it. If you do the standard 1-2 pounds a week with the occasional slip up, you could spend anywhere between half a year and a year on it. But, 233 pounds is something I can imagine. It's a place I can see myself getting. And it's a place I'm going to go.

I am two and a half pounds away from not being morbid. Wow.

This Saturday I found myself staring at my stomach. For the first time, really, it felt smaller than it used to be. I felt smaller than I used to be. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've known for a while that I've been getting smaller. My old clothes are way too big for me. When I do comparison pictures, the difference is clearly visible. The bathtub feels a bit roomier than it used to. But this Saturday was the first time I ever looked at a part of my body and just thought, point blank, "wow, that's smaller."

I'm a bit over four months in at this point so I know the luster should have worn off, but it just hasn't yet. These days I wake up and I'm just blown away by how much I've accomplished. I've entered some sort of twilight zone where there's not a doubt in my mind that this is forever, this is for real, that I will succeed.

Anyway, two mini goals for the week:

1. I'm going to push myself really hard to get to not morbid by next Tuesday. It'll be tough. I haven't put up a 2.5 pound week since early September, and I only did one pound this week. But, I think I can do it, and at the very least I'm going to try.

2. I'm going to get back into the habit of posting every weekday. Yes, work is still pretty crazy and Arabic is hard, but taking time to blog and comment on other blogs makes everything else much easier. So, see you all around the blogosphere!

Tuesday Weigh In

2009-11-03T17:52:00.003-05:00

Well, I bring some bad news, some good news, and some better news.

The bad news: I'm horribly stressed at work. I'm going in at 7am and leaving at 8pm, except for the two days a week where I have Arabic, where I need to leave at 5:30pm, be in class until 9pm, and then work until I feel like I'm going to pass out.

The good news: This too shall pass. Things should calm down substantially after next Tuesday, and I'm looking forward to resuming daily posting.

The better news:

Weight: 236.5
BMI: 40.59

That's 2.3 pounds in one week. NICE. It also puts me past the 40 pound mark, which is, well, NICE. Oh, and did I mention it means I've lost over 7 points of BMI and 14.93% of my bodyweight? Yeah, that's pretty snazzy. And I'm a mere 3.5 pounds away from no longer being morbidly obese.

So, I'm struggling at work, and I miss blogging, and I miss all my blog buddies, but at least I get to report back to you guys that in spite of the stress I'm still a weight losing machine.

I hope the rest of you are having fewer life issues, but just as much weight loss success. Take care and I promise I'll start with real posts again soon!

Tuesday Weigh In

2009-10-27T10:49:00.003-04:00

Weight: 238.8
BMI: 40.99

Well, I'm muddling through.

Last week I weighed in at 239.8, which means I lost exactly one pound this past week. I've been having a pretty rough time at work, to say the least. I've had a very mixed time with the diet, but I'm still managing to pull out more good days than bad ones.

Anyway, this is me checking in to say I'm alive, reasonably well, vaguely sticking with the plan, and will start regularly posting again as soon as I can. Here's to hoping things are better for the rest of you!

Tuesday Weigh In

2009-10-20T09:50:00.002-04:00

Weight: 239.8
BMI: 41.16

First of all, YAY. Okay, I know it's actually not that great. It's a 1.2 pound loss week to week. That's far from fabulous. But, at the same time, YAY.

I'd been having a really rough time of late. I just wasn't all that motivated, and as a result, I wasn't putting the effort in to make me get big losses. And as I kept seeing the small losses, I kept getting more and more discouraged.

I spent 42 days in the 240s. That's a lot. In comparison, I spent only 30 days in the 250s and 25 days in the 260s. It means I was losing an average of only 1.67 pounds/week, which is okay, but not where I want the number to be.

It feels so, so nice to be in a new decade on the scale. In this decade, I will finally drop my morbid label. Right now, I feel motivated and inspired. I had a great day yesterday, burning 3000 calories, eating only 1200, and doing an Arabic class to boot. Today, I'll do the same. (Sans, you know, three hours of arabic.)

I've made great progress, and I can make more. Just watch, the 230s are going to fly by. I can feel it.

Scariness Ahead

2009-10-16T14:17:00.004-04:00

One thing I occasionally do out of habit, even though I've been comfortably ensconced in my job for about 10 months, is check the employment opportunities at other places where I'd think of working later in my career. Since people typically stay at the job I have for only a year or a year and a half (sometimes 2 years, but that's rare), I had been planning on ramping up a job search come December.

On Friday, however, I saw something moderately close to a perfect job. It's a policy analyst position, in my field, and they're looking for someone with pretty much exactly my experience and education. (Although they do say a BA or MA in economics, and I only have a BA. So, I don't mean to suggest that I'm a slam dunk for it, but I do fit the requirements. This think tank is also one of the rare few that will hire policy analysts without Masters degrees, although there's sort of an understanding that you'll pick one up eventually.) I'd get to publish my own research, and self-direct my own projects. It's also not short term, and I wouldn't feel pressured to look for another job two years down the line. It would be perfect. It's the sort of job I've dreamed about, and it's the sort that doesn't come up all that often. After hemming and hawing a bit on whether it would be rude to apply when I've only been here less than a year--general consensus was that it would probably be close enough to the year by the time they actually finished the hiring process that I could go ahead--it seems like what I ought to do is apply for the job. And I will, probably tonight or tomorrow, assuming I can get over myself long enough to do it.

The issue is, basically, I'm petrified. I wasn't expecting to be looking at jobs when I was still this heavy. And yes, I'm less ridiculously fat than I was when I interviewed for my current job in December of 2008. But I'm still, well, ridiculously fat. I'm morbidly obese. I'm just not even close to where I wanted to be when I started doing interviews.

Being fat makes me less likely to get hired and more likely to get paid less even if I do get the job. That sucks. But honestly, there are so many ways in which I'm just not ready for this job yet. I don't want to be extremely fat in front a whole new group of colleagues, and colleagues I'll be around a while at that. If I were to get the job they'd likely take a picture of me to post on their website, and I'm so not ready for a photo of what I look like now to be the first thing someone who does a google search for me finds. There are so, so, so many ways I'm not ready for this.

But I think I should try to get over myself and apply anyway. It's likely I won't get the job, but if I do it would be great for my career. Sure, there will be fears and challenges and it will suck to start my next job fat, but it's worth it. I just need to face my fears and do it. There's no harm in trying.

There was pasta . . .

2009-10-15T11:50:00.005-04:00

Weight: 244

Ouch.

In yesterday's post, I remarked upon my completion of 100 successful days of weight loss. Last night, however, I found myself veering off course.

Mondays and Wednesdays are hectic days for me. I have Arabic classes immediately after work. Arabic gets out at 9pm, and if I'm good I head to the gym after, meaning I get home around 10:30. Because of this, I bring a second sandwich into work on those days, which I have at the end of the work day right before I leave.

So, on an ideal day, I come home after Arabic and the gym, take a shower, and fall right to sleep. Last night was not ideal.

At work on Wednesday, I was more hungry than usual. I ate all my food relatively early, which I sometimes do and which isn't a problem if I can go right home for dinner. Only, this was a Wednesday, and I couldn't go right home for dinner. So instead I starved through Arabic, starved through my workout, and by the time I went home, I wanted cheese.

And cheese I ate.

A whole 800 calorie ball of fresh mozzarella, mixed in with half a box of pasta (another 800 calories), a box of cherry tomatoes and a good bit of marinara sauce. At the end, I felt sick to my stomach and wildly out of control.

So, yesterday I had a bad day. It showed up, quite visibly, on the scale this morning. I didn't really gain 3 pounds overnight, and I know that's mostly salt and bloat, but ouch.

Today's a new day, and today I'll do better. Enough messing around: I need to be back on track.

The First 100 Days

2009-10-14T10:33:00.004-04:00

Today marks the 100th day of my journey. I've been doing this for 100 days. 24000ish hours. 14 weeks and a smidge. Three months and change.

And, I've been doing pretty well. I've lost exactly 37 pounds. That's 13.31% of my starting body weight, and 6.35 points of BMI. It means I've lost an average of 2.59 pounds week, or .37 pounds a day. In my most impressive week, I lost 7.5 pounds. In my least impressive, I lost only .2. I am yet to post a weekly gain.

Losing 37 pounds is equivalent to 129500 calories. That means each day, I've burned an average of 1295 calories more than I took in. When I began, I was a tight size 22, although I did have one suit that was a size 24. Today, I'm a size 18, and the suit jacket I wear to work every day is a size 16.

All that in 100 days.

I've come far, but I have a long way to go. 8 more pounds till I'm not morbidly obese, and 96 more pounds till I'm not overweight at all.

I've learned I'm stronger than I thought, and can walk farther than I might have imagined possible. I've found that there are few things as powerful as simply keeping going.

Each day I don't binge and each day I burn a bit more than I take in is a victory. Each step I walk, each minute I spend on the elliptical and each weight I lift is progress. I am constantly moving closer to my goal and farther from where I was.

The journey is long. It's difficult. I've been challenged. I've been overwhelmed. At times I've fallen. But thus far I've always gotten back up, dusted myself off, and kept going.

This is a numbers game. It's a game of emotion, too, of figuring out who you are, why you're doing this, and how you got this way. But more than that, I think, it's the numbers. Just day in, day out, slowly building up the deficits. There's nothing you can't do if you just keep going.

I've had a great 100 days. Here's to many, many more.

Also, Jenn of Watch My Butt Shrink gave me a Great Shrinking Butt award! Thanks Jenn!

Tuesday Weigh In (and handing out a few awards)

2009-10-13T10:57:00.005-04:00

Weight: 241.0

That's a loss of .9 pounds week to week. Not great, but all things considered, I'll take it.

Sue from Did I Just Eat That Out Loud gave me the following:

Rules are: say six things about yourself that your readers wouldn't already know, and then pass it along. While I poured my heart out over the Honest Scrap award, today I'm going to do smaller things:

1. I use proper grammar and spelling in text messages. I did this even back in the day when phones didn't have keyboards and typing a single letter could take a few clicks. I also use language that has no business being in text messages. A few phrases I've recently texted, just to give you a feel for it: "pretending to rummage," "political disagreements aside," "very adept at spreadsheets."

2. I'm terrible at the difference between effect and affect. Every time I think I've finally got it down, I end up messing up.

3. I hate shaving my legs, and still end up accidentally cutting myself all the time. Having smaller legs, and thus less to shave, is one of the things I'm most looking forward to.

4. I'm not entirely on board with quantum physics. The idea that an electron moves from one place to another without moving in between doesn't really make sense, and the general concept of "these are the rules of physics until things get really small" seems a bit like nonsense to me. Now, I don't actually have any proof, but if this ended up being one part of science that later gets proved wrong, I wouldn't be surprised.

5. In that same vein, I'm pretty sure the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is a cop out. Oh, I said it.

6. This Zoe Williams article on irony from 2003 is still one of my favorite pieces of writing ever. The article has a few typos in it, which bugs me to no end. When I send it to friends, I'll sometimes copy/paste it into the email and fix them.

I'm not going to give it back to Did I Just Eat That Out Loud, even though I'm sorely tempted to because I love her blog that much. Instead, I'm going to pass the award on to a few of my favorite folks who haven't gotten this particular award yet:

Monica at Confessions of a + Sized Girl - I love Monica's blog an inordinate amount. Like, I love it so much people would be like "your amount of love for Confessions is not within reasonable limits."

Jo at 282.5 - I may actually have been able to award this to her first! Seriously, though, I love Jo, and I love her blog, and there's no way I could not award this to her.

S. at Ethereal Endeavor - S. seems amazingly smart. She strikes me as someone who I would hit it off with in real life, and the sort of person who I could lose arguments to on a regular basis. Trust me when I say that's high praise.

Lynn at Actual Scale - Lynn is fabulous. She's given me so much information, so much good advice, so much help, and I just can't say enough how much I appreciate it. Her words of wisdom occasionally fill in as the big sister I never had and sorely need. Seriously, thank you Lynn.

Katie J from Katie J Is on Her Way - Some day, Katie's going to have to be like "Hadley stop copying me" and that will be a sad day indeed. She inspires me so much, and more than she probably knows. She inspired me to get out a bugg, clean out my closet, and do all sorts of great things.

Erin at The XXL Files - Erin is amazing, and her blog is too. Not that many people read it yet, and many more should. It's great, seriously, it's one of those blogs you discover and go "how the hell was I not reading this yet?" Her blog is smart, funny, and touching. You should read it.

This is tough, because honestly, this list could go on and on. There are so many people I'd like to give this to: HD, 266, Jenn, Learning To Be Less, F. McButter, the Kittehs, Jodikris, Jack, I could go on and on. But I'm only supposed to do 6, so 6 I shall do.

Also, the Kittehs hit me with a fabulous new (and super pretty) rule free blog award:

Thank you Orange Kitteh! Thank you Black Kitteh! You two are the bee's knees.

You Don't Eat Anymore, Anyway

2009-10-12T10:18:00.005-04:00

What a weekend.

Sigh.

I decided before the weekend that, while I was going to keep control of my eating and obviously not binge, I was going to partake fully in the weekend. Not only was I not willing to announce "I'm on a diet," but I also didn't really want to spoil the mood. Food is important to my family. If I sat there, abstemiously picking at a salad, my parents would be some combination of offended and annoyed. So, I decided that family peace was worth a few extra calories, and hey, I'd get to eat some delicious food in the bargain.

Thursday night, I only saw my parents briefly. As reported, my Dad complimented me on how good I was looking, and my mom said nothing. On Friday, I came home for lunch, and we ate Greek food that my parents had bought at this great place called Greek Deli that I had told them about. We were eating family style, and I had a little bit of a whole bunch of things, and then some. I ate, really, a good plate of food. More than I'd normally eat these days, but certainly still less than I would have in June. It was a lot. If I had to guess, it was maybe 800 or 900 calories, but if you told me it was 1200 I would've believed you. Friday night, we took out dinner from a Southern soul food place called Oohhs and Aahhs. We again ate family style, splitting two entrees and supplementing it with a bit of leftovers from our Greek food earlier. I had about a cup (okay, maybe 1 1/2 cups) of very rich macaroni and cheese, a small bit of meat from the short ribs, and 5 seasoned shrimp. Not exactly starving myself.

As we sat watching the Yankee game (yes, this is why we did takeout), my mom commented that I looked so grown up in the jeans I was wearing. They're just a schlubby pair of size 20 gap jeans, but that wasn't really what she was saying. Essentially, when I started gaining weight for real I stopped wearing real pants. I just started wearing yoga pants and sweat pants and anything XL with a drawstring that let me avoid the fact that I should be shopping in plus size stores. I was a college kid, however, so this worked pretty okay. I picked up a pair of grey size 22 REI hiking pants at one point that I'd ordered online, but really, those were the only pants in my rotation that had the whole zipper/button thing going on. Slightly before I graduated, I did some plus size department store shopping to get an interview suit, and when I got hired for my job I bought several suits since I needed to wear one every day, but before recently I hadn't worn jeans since probably my senior year in high school. So when she said "You look so grown up in those jeans, Hadley," it felt like she meant more than she said.

Saturday we went out to brunch. I got a sandwich that came with fries, and ate half the sandwich and maybe 1/3 of the fries. My parents picked another third. Throughout the day, my mom started making comments. "Well Hadley's the one who would be hungry, she didn't eat much." Things like that. At what my parents called a late lunch but what was, in my opinion, late enough that it was dinner, I had a salami sandwich on some fresh bread we'd just bought. After the movie, my parents wanted dinner, so we went to an afghan restaurant that's an old family favorite for dinner two. (I ate maybe 1/4 cup of rice, a few tablespoons of Dal, 1/3 of a piece of a naan-like afghan bread, and 3 pieces of chicken from a kebab that had maybe 7 pieces.) That night, as my mom and I were standing around after unpacking the bounty from the day and waiting for my dad to park the car, my mom said to me "Your pants are too big." It wasn't a complimentary tone. It felt harsh.

Essentially, here's where the weekend was at this point: I'd woken up and slaved an hour in the gym each morning so I could eat pretty darn close to normally. Granted, I wasn't eating quite as much as I used to, but there was no way I was much under 2000 calories a day. I burned over 3k, so I'm guessing I did all right-ish in terms of calorie deficits, but my god, I was trying.

Sunday morning, I again woke up and went to the gym (my parents were staying at a hotel and thus unaware that I'd been hitting the gym each morning). For brunch, we went to Brasserie Beck, which is a French/Belgian place and possibly my favorite restaurant in DC. The bread basket came out, and I had a piece because, well, the bread there is oh-so-delicious and I think it's okay to have a small piece of bread when the bread's that damn good. "Have another piece of bread, Hadley," my mom said. I did. She then started going on and on about how she wanted to order the petite croissants in addition to her meal but felt too embarrassed. I said some sort of "order them if you want them." She did order them, but she seriously kept talking about how she felt embarrassed to be eating them, and insisted my father and I each have one. (Four came on the platter.) When Brunch came, I ate about 1/3 of my croque monsieur and 1/3 of my fries. About another 1/3 of the sandwich went to my parents tastings, and 1/3 of the fries to my mother. I had enough food that I had to get it wrapped up--my Dad will never let you not wrap up extra food at restaurants, it's one of his things--but my parents had both cleaned their plates.

That afternoon, we did a grocery shopping trip. One of the traditions whenever my parents visit me, is that we go on a big grocery shopping trip and they pick up the bill at the end. We'd discussed the possibility of me making dinner for the family that night, since everyone wanted to stay in again to watch the Yankee game. Normally, I love getting to go grocery shopping with my parents, and stock up on all the $12 cheeses that I rarely buy on my own, as well as staples so I just don't have to buy them down the line. This, however, was different. If I bought too little, my mother would implore me to buy more, but I also didn't want to buy food I wouldn't eat, since that would just be wasteful.

Anyway, as we were wandering around the grocery store, I asked my mom if she wanted to pick out the desert for the night. She turned to me, with this tone, this horrible, horrible tone she uses sometimes and said "what's the point?"

"Well if I'm going to be making dinner at home--"

She cut my off: "You don't eat anymore, anyway, we don't need desert."

Ouch. Ouch. Just ouch ouch ouch. The way she said it, the look in her eyes. It was horrible. I wanted to cry. We split up so she could sit down in the grocery store's cafe while I shopped, and I just wanted to break down in one of the aisles and start crying my eyes out.

I don't get it. I don't get why she's doing this. I don't get why she's being so unsupportive, why it feels like she's trying to hurt me. I was honestly eating a perfectly reasonable amount of food for a non dieting person, and I probably hit close to (or possibly even broke) the 2000 calorie mark every single day. And I'm not even asking for support. I didn't bring it up once. I didn't make any comments. I didn't ask to go to healthy restaurants. I didn't even order particularly healthy dishes. All I'd like is for my mother to not be so incredibly hostile and seemingly angry at me for losing a bit of weight.

I feel defeated. I feel emotionally drained. Not visiting my parents while I was getting my feet on this diet was absolutely the right call. I'd been planning on going home for the whole week of Thanksgiving so I could be home for my birthday as well, but now I'm less certain. I love my parents. I genuinely do. But I just can't deal with my mom being randomly mean to me because I've made the choice to take more responsibility for my health and body.

In other news, Sue (aka Mommy2Joe, who runs the excellent and extremely funny blog Did I Just Eat That Out Loud?) gave me the following:

Thank you Sue! Since I think not *too* many people have it just yet, I do want to make up a list of recipients, but I need to finish up this post before that can happen. So, thanks Sue, and I'll try to hand this one out tomorrow.

Amnesia Spell

2009-10-09T15:58:00.007-04:00

I saw my parents last night, as well as today at lunch. The first words out of my Dad's mouth were "you look great, Hadley" and my mom, as expected, remained silent. I smiled, said thank you, and we moved to talking about other things. I missed them so much, and I really am incredibly glad to see them again.

Yesterday in the comments, S. (who by the way runs an awesome blog called Ethereal Endeavor that I'd highly encourage you to check out) said "I wish I could just have the results and then cast some sort of amnesia spell over everyone so they could just forget that I was ever fat." That sentiment, right there, captures exactly what I wanted to say.

For me (and I'd bet for her) it's not that were not willing and able to put the work in, we both are, and we both currently do. I'm okay with the occasional hunger, the workouts, and the slow and steady building of deficits over time. And I get that I spent quite a few years digging myself into this hole, and that it'll take me a reasonable while to get out. I'm okay with that: I accept that I can't get results now, no matter how much I want them. My issue is that even when I get there, the memory will remain.

Lynn (aka Actual Scale, whose eponymous and epicly good blog is here) and a few others rightfully commented that my "if she's on a diet she cares too much about her looks" sentiment evoked vanity, and I realize now that that wasn't the tone I meant to strike. Because if a fat person like me goes on a diet, they're more likely to think "about time" rather than "she must be vain."

Being on a diet doesn't say "I care excessively about my looks." It just doesn't, at least not for people who, like me, could indeed stand to lose a few pounds. But it does say something else, something intensely personal, and something that I'm not necessarily 100% comfortable shouting from the rooftops at any given moment.

What "I'm on a diet" says, essentially, is "I was wrong." It says somehow, along the way, I messed up. Maybe I thought I enjoyed food more than the idea of being thin, maybe I was stressed and let impulse get the better of me, maybe I was just plain lazy, but what I did, was wrong. Being fat was a wrong choice. I messed up. And right now, I'm fixing my error.

That's the knife. That's what I'm afraid to say, afraid for people to notice. But the thing is, it gets much worse.

Saying "I did something bad, but now I'm redeeming myself" isn't really that terrible. Sure, not something you'd necessarily want to inadvertently share with colleagues and casual acquaintances, but it's not the worst thing in the world. You're taking the right path now, you're on the road to redemption now. Sure, you fucked up, but people do, and that's okay, you're slowly picking yourself up.

But what happens if you fail? I don't think I will, but I'm also smart and honest enough to know that it's within the realm of possibility. One commonly heard statistic is that 95% of diets fail. Other times you hear 90%. Either way, those aren't good numbers. Want to be depressed for a bit? Scroll down to the bottom of my blog list and click "show all". What do you think happened to those people who haven't updated in a while? Chances are, they're not chugging along but not posting. And I've only been writing for a bit over three months! If you look at a blog that's been around a bit longer like Learning to Be Less (another great blog that I'd recommend for your reading list), practically the bottom half of her blog list hasn't checked in in over a week. And those are probably just the non-updated ones she couldn't bear to cut. Sometimes you'll stumble on a blog that hasn't been updated in a while, and find that neither have all the blogs in the blogroll. These things happen. Diets die. Blogs fade. Things fail.

So what you're saying, if you fail, to all those people who sort of know you, who you see from time to time and smile at and say hello is "There is something deeply wrong with me. I know it. I tried to change. But I failed. I failed, and I am failing every day." And that, that is what scares me.

Part of it also is, that I don't know if I'm really at the point where I'm ready to say something was deeply wrong, or even wrong at all, when I was choosing to get (and stay) fat. I don't want to say there's something wrong with someone who is fat and chooses to stay that way. If you want to make and eat delicious foods, and eat more of them then society says you should, I'm okay with that being your choice. Right now, I am choosing to not stay fat because there are currently things I find more compelling, with a big giant flashing CAREER being the one that tips the scales in favor of thinness. There are good, logical reasons why I'm changing my body, but I certainly do realize it's a trade-off. And if someone's preferences are slightly different than mine, and if for them the extra time from not working out and the extra cheesecake for deliciousness is worth a bit more, that's okay. I don't think there's something all that wrong with someone who chooses to stay fat.

But, the girl with the cubicle by the elevator, or the guy who works the front desk, they don't know that. And the sort of friends, the cousins, the social acquaintances, all the people who will pick up on my not-so-rapidly shrinking butt, they're not going to see that. All they're going to see is "guess she finally realized how fat she was, it's a good thing she's changing it." And if, just if, my butt ends up growing bigger again, they're going to see "well, I guess she lost control again."

And that's why I, too, really, really, really wish I had an amnesia spell.

What, for you, tipped the scale that made you want to lose weight now? Do you think you've implicitly judged your past actions (and past fatness) by losing weight? What do you think losing weight says about you? And if you were to fail, what do you think that would say?

Some business:

Per request, I've added a contact email up by about me. While comments will probably get my attention more quickly, I do check that email addy every day or two. If you ever have something private and need a relatively quick reply, an email and a "I sent you an email" comment will probably get you the rapidest response.

Lynn of Actual Scale, not too many days ago, gave me an Over the Top award. Thanks Lynn! I added it to my sidebar. I also finally got around to adding my Honest Scrap award. Quite a few of you bestowed that honor upon me (for which I'm quite thankful), and I apologize for the laziness in putting it up. I'll do my best to collect the names of all the people who gave it to me and add them to the sidebar.

And, last but not least, there were a higher than usual number of new folks who commented yesterday, so welcome! If I haven't already, I'll be stopping by your blog--if you have one--shortly.

Have a great weekend, all!

A Parental Visit, Laced with Fear

2009-10-08T14:06:00.012-04:00

I just wanted to thank you all for the wonderful get well soon wishes. I'm feeling much better, albeit still a bit blah.

So, my parents are coming into town tonight. They'll be here all weekend. It will be the first time I've seen them since mid-July, when I was hovering just under the 270 mark. And, I'm pretty damn nervous about it. Mostly, I have a lot of questions about what's going to happen.

First off, will they notice? If I'm honest with myself, my guess is there's a good chance they'll notice. I've lost 13% of my weight over all, and 10% since the time I last saw them. That 10% mark is supposed to be a visible one, and I'd say there's a better than even chance they'll pick up on it. After all, when I last saw them I was wearing a size 22. These days I'm wearing 18s and 16s. When I compare my size 22 jacket and size 16 jacket, the difference is pretty, well, sizable.

And, of course, if they do notice, will they say something? Well, there I'm just not sure. That's not entirely true. If he notices, my Dad will almost certainly say some sort of "You look so nice, Hadley." I don't think I'd get something as blunt as "Have you lost weight?" for which I'm quite grateful. My mom's less likely to comment, if she notices, but it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility.

Okay, so here's the thing: I love my parents. I'm very close to them. I haven't seen them since July, and generally I see them every month or six weeks. The not seeing them was entirely at my behest: I could've gone up to NYC at any point, or encouraged them to come down earlier. There's a reason I haven't seen them more recently, and it's because I didn't want to.

Again, let me emphasize, I love my parents. I've missed them a lot. I've felt quite a few times on this journey like I needed to just go home and see them for a weekend. But now, that I'm about to see them, I'm filled with dread.

I don't want them to know. I don't, don't, don't want them to know. I don't want them to notice. I don't want them to ask. I'm petrified. I am 36 pounds and 94 days into this journey, and I haven't told a single soul. I'm so, so, so terribly scared.

I hate the idea of people knowing I'm on a diet. HATE it.

Back in the day, I used to be incredibly into fashion. I used to be into shopping, being popular, being mean. All the superficial, the New York City, the money, the silly. That used to be my life. When I was 16, my picture was in TeenVogue. I cared so, so, so much about looks.

And then I stopped. I became serious, intellectual. I purposefully went to a college with the unofficial motto "where fun goes to die". Because I was an oh-so-serious person interested in saving the world and changing things and math and economics and serious things. I chose the college I chose specifically as a repudiation of all things New York. I hated what I was at 15, and I wanted to run away from that. (For the record, yes, with a bit more maturity I realize that there's room for some of the fun and that things don't have to be quite so serious. If you can't tell, I'm not quite as into being a super serious person as I was at 18.) And honestly, being fat was part of that. It was part of saying "I don't care about your superficial world. I don't want to be a part of it anymore."

And the thing is, I still don't, really. If you told me that I could lose weight with no one noticing, but still get the benefits of health and freedom of motion/fitting places, I'd do it. The thought of people commenting to each other on "Oh does it look like Hadley's lost some weight" drives me absolutely insane. Sometimes I'll say, oh it would be a nice bonus to be hot, but honestly, relative to everything else, I could care less. And half the days I don't even want it. I'm not doing this to be pretty. I'm not doing this to be beautiful. I'm not doing this to be noticed. I just want to be able to live and have the career I want with size not being an issue. I don't really care if I'm ugly as sin so long as it doesn't hold me back from the things I actually want to do.

I'm scared my family is going to notice. I don't want them to. I don't want anyone to. I am just so, so, so scared.

I have to accept that if I keep going along people are going to notice. They're probably going to comment, too. And I'm going to hate people looking at my body. And I'm going to hate people thinking that I must be on a diet because I care too much about how I look. But I need to keep reminding myself it's worth it.

And it is. Being fat puts me at a disadvantage applying to jobs. Being fat could cause me to fail the Foreign Service medical exam, and if I fail that my dream career is dead. There are also things I love (skiing! swimming! etc) that I either can't do or feel like I can't do because of my weight. My health and my career are worth it. Changing my life for the better is worth the fact that people are going to notice my body changes.

Right?

Tuesday Weigh In

2009-10-06T10:14:00.004-04:00

Well, I'm sick as a dog and swamped at work, but I'd hate to miss a weigh in:

Weight: 241.9
BMI: 41.52

I'm down 1.6 pounds week to week.

I feel yucky, but I'm on the right track. I didn't put my all in this week, and it showed. On Friday, I ate almost 1500 calories, and on Saturday I was just under 1800. The other days I hewed closely to my 1200-1300 range, although I confess that yesterday I only hit the 1100 mark.

Tomorrow, I'm going to get back in the gym. I'm going to eat well. And for the love of god, I hope I'm feeling better.

Here's to hoping things are better for the rest of you.

Why are we obese?

2009-10-02T11:05:00.010-04:00

So I do policy work in DC. Although most of my day is Stata and spreadsheets, staying up on the latest thinking is part of the job. Right now, there's a lot of very interesting thinking about obesity. I read so, so much of it, and I think about it a lot. I want to start working through a few of my thoughts about it. Essentially, my goal is to dig through some of the leading thinking about obesity, discuss whether it feels true to me, and hopefully hear back from you guys about whether these seem true in your life.

James Fallows of The Atlantic has recently had a really interesting series on obesity. (I can't find a unifying tag on his blog, but most of it is on the front page here.) I may talk about a few other of the letters at some point, but I wanted to start off with this one:

It is one thing for a successful, financially comfortable, socially accepted and respected person who has multiple things happening every day that are pleasurable (golf, driving a nice car, nice home, stylish clothing, success at work, interesting social events, kids doing well, planning vacations, etc) to take just one pleasurable aspect of life (overeating) and sacrifice some of that pleasure for the good result of losing weight.

Now, for people struggling financially and socially, trying to just get through the day and keep their lives together to varying degrees...their meals are often the only consistently happy and pleasurable events they can count on each day.

Obviously, a generalization. But, if one gets up and faces a day with a tedious and unfulfilling job, not much money to spend on anything but necessities, and no "fun" things ahead, how much more difficult it is for that person to also think ahead to a day of denying themselves the pleasure of their mealtimes....

(All the ellipses are original.) Another Atlantic blogger, Ta-Nehisi Coates, expounded on the idea, and his experience with it. I'm not going to block quote the post, but it's an interesting read. Coates picked up the attention of the Washington Post's Ezra Klein, who brought the situation away from the personal to the academically grounded:

This reminds me of Charles Karelis's "The Persistence of Poverty." The basic argument is that the wealthy misunderstand the mental state of the poor, which leads them to make conceptual errors when creating policies to address poverty, or, in this case, obesity. Think of a bee sting, he advises. If you have a single bee sting, you'll go buy some salve to take away the pain. Now imagine three bee stings, a sprained ankle, a burn, a cut, a crick in your neck, a sore throat, and arthritis. Does the bee sting matter anymore?

Karelis argues that this is more the situation of someone in poverty. Obesity is bad, but it may be just one of many bad things. Overdue bills. A horrible part-time job. Endless commuting time on the bus. A mother with diabetes. A child running with the wrong crowd. A leaking roof. In that scenario, slowly reversing your weight gain might be a good idea, but it hardly makes a dent in the overall crumminess of the conditions. It won't replace pain with pleasure. So you do things that are surer to replace pain with pleasure, like have a delicious, filling, satisfying, salty, fatty meal. That may make your overall situation more unpleasant, but then, making that situation pleasant didn't seem like an option in the first place.

And this, to me, screamed true, true true. Not just about poverty (which I've been fortunate enough not to experience) but with the other stresses in life. When I was in college, terribly stressed, depressed and constantly freaking out about what I was going to do for a career, losing weight just didn't make sense. I had all those other terrible things, and it just made so much more sense to do the things that made me happy now, that helped get me through the day. Even when I started my job in DC and was just getting set up here, I don't think I could've done it. There was too much else to stress about. Now, though, my little world is relatively under control, and I have the mental energy and willpower to devote to fixing my weight. I can work on curing this.

How do you guys feel about this theory? Do you think the success you're having now or failures you've had in the past are related to all the other things going on in your life? Or do you think this theory is a bit namby pamby, and feel like weight loss success or failure is independent of other things?

The Boredom and the Excitement

2009-10-01T11:37:00.002-04:00

As I sat this morning thinking of post topics, I found myself circling back to something Mommy2Joe brought up a few days ago. Namely, that losing weight is incredibly, incredibly boring. She aptly described it as a "huge, slow, pain in the ass." And, honestly, she's right. Losing weight is one of the most boring things I've ever done. I've conquered the basics, the eating less and the moving more. I'm consistently dropping pounds. I've got it down. But, when you consider how fat I am, how far I've got to go, we're looking at almost a year just to get down to a normal weight range. And that's if I keep dropping 2 pounds a week. I've just got week in, week out of denying myself treats, pushing myself to the gym, and just slowly, slowly, slowly building up calorie deficits. My Tuesday weigh in was 243.5. That means I have 98.5 pounds to go till a normal weight. That means I need to build up a 344,750 calories deficit. Like, holy shit. That's a LOT. This is going to take a long time. A long, very boring, very same, very challenging time.

Sigh.

The flip side to this, of course, is that losing weight can be so amazingly awesome at times. Going to the scale in the morning and seeing the drops? Seriously, there are few feelings as good as a well deserved bigger than expected loss. The concept, itself, is epic. We're battling metaphorical demons and literally saving our own lives.

And everywhere you go, there are milestones, gigantic monuments to your accomplishments. Each pound, each point of BMI, each percent of body weight. The smaller pants, the smaller shirts, the smaller everything. The not getting winded walking up stairs, and walking and running and moving faster than you ever have before. Honestly, at this point if you told my rather critical mind that I'd be able to fly by the end of this journey, part of me would half believe you. I'm doing things I'd never thought I'd be able to do so much sooner than I thought I'd be able to do them. Where else do you get to accomplish so much?

Losing weight is a fabulous, exhilarating, exciting and awe inspiring journey. It's also one of the most boring things I've ever done.

Turns Out My Office Is a Lucky Place

2009-09-30T09:54:00.002-04:00

There are exactly four fat people in my office. There's one guy who's at the very top of the food chain who's quite heavy. One of the administrative assistants a floor down from me is fat. And there's one other fat guy who does some sort of facilities/mail room stuff, although I'm not sure exactly what he does. And then there's me.

The point I'm trying to make is that being fat here is relatively rare. I stand out, I'm an exception. Career pressure is certainly part of my motivation to work on losing the weight now. One of the things I'm finding out, though, is that there are even more previously fat people around here than there are fat people.

When I got my job in January, I found out within the first few weeks that one guy had recently lost 80 pounds. He was still losing at that point, but he was within a pretty normal range by the time I met him. I'm pretty sure at this point he's entered maintenance.

In the spring, I found out via photo that another, more senior guy, also had a heavy history. At a lunch over the summer, it came up that another low level policy person (his job is comparable to mine, but he's been here about two years) had lost 50 pounds after coming to work here but before I met him. He said he'd done it just by cutting out soda and walking more.

And then yesterday I found out that the only other girl on my floor (girls are a distinct minority at my office, but my floor in particular is almost girl-free) had also dropped quite a bit of weight, again after arriving here but before I'd met her.

My office, it seems, is therefore quite a lucky place when it comes to battling the bulge. There are as many former fat folks as there are current fat folks, which is quite a bit better than the standard odds out there in the world. Maybe it's that being fat is rare, and people don't like feeling like the exception. Maybe it's just that these are smart, dedicated people who realize when they get to DC that their weight will hold their careers back. Or maybe, just maybe, it's a very lucky place to lose your excess pounds.

Either way, I feel a lot less lonely knowing that I'm surrounded by people who have been where I am, even if it's not something I'd feel comfortable talking with them about. And I feel a bit more confident knowing I'm surrounded by people who have succeeded in doing what I now attempt. I can and will do this.

Tuesday Weigh In

2009-09-29T11:54:00.005-04:00

Weight: 243.5
BMI: 41.79

Last Tuesday I weighed in at 245.9, so today represents a perfectly solid 2.4 pound loss. I'm up .1 pounds day to day, but I'm not going to focus on that. Instead, let's look at the good:

1. Losing 2.4 pounds/week is more than enough for either my stretch goal or my long term goal.
2. My BMI's now 41.79. This is the first weekly weigh in I've had where my BMI is under 42.
3. I've now lost 12.41% of my starting weight. This is the first weekly weigh in I've had where I've lost over 12% of my starting body weight.
4. I've now lost a total of 34.5 pounds and have 98.5 pounds left to lose before I'm of normal weight.
5. Only 10.5 pounds to go till I'm not morbid! Next week, that number will probably be in the single digits.

These are good things. I also want to use this post to check in on my Hot 100 goals:

1. Have two "Biggest Loser" (6000+ calorie burn on my Bodybugg) days a month. I didn't make it for September, but I tried valiantly. I'm pleased with my attempt. Next attempt is October 4th (this Sunday), but I'm probably going to only shoot for 5000.

2. Work out an average of 5 days/week. Easily accomplished. If you count lunch time walks, I've worked out ever day since Sunday the 20th. (Technically the challenge started on the 23rd.) If my almost-daily lunch walks--each of which burns over 400 calories according to my bugg--don't count, then I didn't work out on Thursday.

3. Go to the Gym at least 15 times each month. If you start back on Sunday the 20th, I went every day but Thursday and Friday. Since this is a monthly goal and the challenge didn't technically start until the 23rd, it's hard to judge, but at the very least I fulfilled the spirit of this goal by going to the gym often and working out hard while I was there.

4. Keep average calories below 1400, and don't exceed 2000 in a single day. Easy peasy. I upped my calories to a minimum of 1200 not too long ago, and have been meeting that. I haven't gone above 1400 for probably a few weeks, and certainly not since the challenge has begun.

Well, that's that. I'm pleased with the weigh in, and pleased with my week. The bugg has been an excellent motivator, and I'm incredibly glad I've got it. Here's to making this coming week even better!

Edited to add: Monica asked me in the comments if the front desk guys were still bugging me about spinning classes, and the answer is an unfortunate yes. (Newer readers: the full story is available here.) Last night I arrived right before a spinning class was about to start, and he asked me if I was going to it. I said I didn't think so, and he was all "oh come on you should go!" I said I was in the mood for the elliptical instead and hurried on by. Passing the front desk gauntlet is easily the worst part of going to the gym for me on weekdays. At least the more aggressive class pusher is only there Monday through Thursdays, right?

Essentially, I still hate it, it still makes me want to get in the habit of working out in the morning so I don't have to deal with getting pestered, but for now I'm just brushing it off.

My First (attempted) Biggest Loser Day

2009-09-28T09:25:00.007-04:00

I spoke last week about how I was going to try to do a 6000 calorie burn Biggest Loser Day, as a way of challenging myself as well as trying to burn some extra calories. In the end, I didn't make it to the 6000 calorie burn mark. But, I think it's possible to get there (or get close, anyway) and I'm looking forward to trying next week.

Here's my burn for the attempted Biggest Loser Day.

As you can see, the day started out pretty well. I walked to the gym, did an hour on the elliptical, then lifted, then 20 minutes on the elliptical, and walked home. At home I ate lunch, and then went for a walk to Eastern Market. You can see the activity for that listed from 1pm to a little after three. Notice, however, how choppy it is. My feet were sore, and I was exhausted. Midway through, it started pouring. When I came home at 3:30 or so, my plan to take a 30 minute nap actually turned into me passing out until nearly 8pm, at which point I said "eh, this isn't happening."

The biggest problem, in my opinion, was that I hadn't fully recovered from the night before, when I decided to go out on an 8 mile walk on a lark:

See that giant chunk of activity from 7 to 10:30? That, in my opinion, was my main mistake. It left me blistered and exhausted, and the end result was that I wasn't able to give my all the next day.

I also think I found myself overly intimidated by the 6000 number, and perhaps would do well to just aim for 5000 on my next attempt (which will be this Sunday, since Saturday morning I have the Foreign Service Written Exam).

I can do this. It's a challenge, no doubt about it, but it definitely is doable. If I hadn't fallen asleep, while I don't know if I would've made 6k, I definitely could've gotten up to 5000.

In other news: Jo at 282.5 has now officially lost 50 pounds! If you haven't already, be sure to go over and congratulate her.

It depends on what your definition of is is

2009-09-25T09:40:00.008-04:00

Well, actually, it depends on what your definition of morbidly obese is.

The most common definition, and probably the fairest, is a BMI greater than 40. However, there is another, alternate definition "100+ pounds overweight." Yesterday, no matter which way you cut it, I was firmly in the morbid category. Today, not so much.

Weight: 244.8

Normal weight for someone my height tops out at 145. This means I am no longer 100+ pounds overweight! As of this morning, I am a mere 99.8 pounds over a normal weight. Ah, the things we can rejoice in when we're as far gone as I.

Seriously, even though I think the 40+ BMI definition of morbid is more valid, today marks a substantive milestone for me. My weight loss goal is no longer in the triple digits. And 11.8 pounds from now, I won't be morbid by any definition. Good stuff.

In other news, last night I decided that I was going to stop messing around and make sure I get to 1200 calories every day, even if I feel like I don't really need the last 250 or so.

Now, conventional wisdom in the dieting world is pretty definitive on the "You must eat 1200 calories a day or BADNESS." The badness they most typically threaten people with is that if you eat fewer than 1200 calories a day, your body won't lose as much weight as if you eat just at or slightly above this mark. There's also some shebang about how it's bad for your body and how you need nutrients and whatnot. (The last point is one I mostly agree with, although I'm not entirely convinced of it's importance. Losing weight is self starvation, an inherently unhealthy process. The result is healthy, the value of shedding excess pounds makes it healthy on balance, but the self starvation part still pretty trying on your body. I'm not, for example, 100% convinced that the value of getting things done more quickly--thus spending fewer days starving yourself--isn't worth more than the value of getting perfect nutrients along the way.)

But okay, my real objection is with the idea that if you go below the 1200 calorie low bound, your body will go into "starvation mode" and that you'll lose less weight than if you were above it. It strikes me as absolute nonsense that one would lose less weight at 1150 than 1250 a day, or less weight at 900 than 1200.

The first thing that bugged me about it was that it clearly broke basic rules of physics. Diet industry, meet Conservation of Energy. You see, my buddy conservation is a rule. A real science-y rule, not one of your made up diet ones. That said, I do understand that bodies are complex organisms, and that going below a certain point could trigger your body to do other things that conserve energy, but it's not going to be enough to make up the difference. I'd absolutely 100% buy that because of your body's response there are decreasing marginal returns as you cut more calories (for example, that going from 1800 to 1700 would be worth more than cutting from 800 to 700, even that the cut from 800 to 700 only produces as much bonus weight loss as going from, say, 1800 to 1760), but decreasing marginal returns does not mean the effectiveness stops all together.

Besides, there's absolutely no way that all those people who are out there in the world starving are really just doing so because they're hitting 1300 calories a day, and if they only ate 1100 they'd be unable to lose weight. Ridiculous.

And then there's the fact that when you get into more medical settings, they do use sub 1200 calorie diets with great success. The 1200 calorie rule isn't just nonsensical in theory, it's flat out wrong in practice. Gastric bypass patients, for example, will be on a 600 calorie diet for a few weeks post op. Physician supervised very low calorie diets do exist for rapid weight loss.

So, all that, but: I'm committing to myself to hit the 1200 calorie mark every day for the next two weeks. This is tough for me. I enjoy heterodoxy for its own sake and I hate doing things that I can't independently make sense of. But after seeing my bugg burn values for the past few days (3527 Wednesday and 3172 yesterday), it occurred to me that relative to burn, the extra 220 or so calories I save on sub 1200 days just aren't worth it. I'm better off spending my mental energy pushing myself to get off the couch again to go for a walk than questioning whether or not I really need miracle whip on my daily sandwich (30 calorie difference), and is picking turkey over ham or roast beef (15ish calorie difference) really worth the decreased enjoyment.

Don't get me wrong, I still think diet is more important than exercise in terms of weight loss. And the difference eating 2000 and 1200 calories a day is huge, but right now, for me, it makes sense to stay in the 1200-plus club. For these next two weeks, I'm going to hit 1200 even if it means stuffing down an extra cottage cheese before bed. After that, I'll see where things are, and decide where I want to go from there.

I'm still a little in shock from how much I poured out in yesterday post, so apologies for the overshare. I've now officially told you guys a whole heck of a lot more about me than I ever intended, and even shared a few secrets I don't tell people in real life. But that's blogging, right?

Ten Things

2009-09-24T10:19:00.009-04:00

Per the Honest Scrap award, ten things:

1. I am absolutely petrified of the dentist, and have an appointment today. This is the first time I've ever gone to the dentist on my own volition: every previous time I'd just been forced by my mother. I'm petrified that he's going to give me horrible news, and have been brushing and flossing like a mad woman since I made the appointment a few weeks ago. I'm pretty sure something's wrong with at least one of my teeth.

2. I am 99.99% certain I have PCOS. When I was a junior in college, my mom sent me an email saying "now that your 21 I think you should know you might have this because I had this." I have a lot of the symptoms (stray hairs I need to pluck, wildly irregular cycle, obesity, occasional acne, and the fact that whenever I google weird things about my body to figure out if it's normal a PCOS forum always shows up). The most common ways to treat PCOS are diet and exercise and the pill. An enormous part of this whole weight loss thing is to get rid of my PCOS symptoms. I'd like to get on the pill, too, but for that I'd need to see a doctor, and well . . .

3. My deepest fear is that I'll get diagnosed with diabetes before I'm able to join the Foreign Service. Once I have it, that's it, there's no way I'd be let in because they need to clear you for worldwide availability. If I got diabetes my life's ambition would be dead in the water, and I wouldn't have the slightest idea what I wanted to do with my life. One of the craziest things about diabetes is that just through diet and exercise, people can improve their health enough that they don't need any medications and can get results in the normal range on the "do you have diabetes" tests. But even though they test as normal and really no longer have diabetes, they count as having diabetes. Which, to me, says "do everything you can to avoid being diagnosed." Right now, if I had diabetes, and I keep losing weight and self cure, as far as the world is concerned, I'm not a diabetic. If I go in and see a doctor, get diagnosed, and then cure myself through diet and exercise, I'll still be a diabetic and can't join the Foreign Service.

4. I don't really think I have diabetes just yet, though. I'm still quite young, and my father didn't get it until his 50s. When I take online tests they say it's possible I have prediabetes and that I'm at risk and should get tested. Still, getting the pill to help with PCOS is not worth the risk of ruining my dream.

5. The only places I've ever lived for any length of time are New York City, Chicago, DC and Paris. I hate crowds, and part of me hates cities. Sometimes I think I should pick up and move out to Montana.

6. I grew up in Manhattan and went to one of the top private schools in the country. Yes, sort of like Gossip Girl, only less salacious. No, not really like NYC Prep, those kids all went to crap schools like Birch Wathen Lolnex. Whenever I meet people from NYC who grew up in the private school circuit, my first impulse is still to judge them on where they went to school. I try not to, though.

7. I once earnestly tried to explain to my college friends that I wasn't rich by using the argument that my parents had sold our second country house to help pay college tuition for my brother and I. As someone who's now seen a bit more of the real world, I now at least partially recognize how ridiculously sheltered I was.

8. I'm still ridiculously sheltered, though. I have an entry level DC salary (read: low) and live in a one bedroom apartment in the heart of downtown DC in a nice doorman building. My parents pay the vast majority of my rent and for all of my clothes and shoes, as well as a few other expenses. If it were up to me I'd live some place cheaper since I don't think the place is worth the rent, but my mom's a bit psychotic about safety, and since my parents were the ones picking up most of the bills I couldn't really argue too hard against it. In spite of that, I'm pretty frugal about most things and place a high value on saving money.

9. My friends from New York are all brats like me. My friends from college are mostly upper middle class kids, many of them the children of professors. I only have one friend who's from a wildly different background and who didn't grow up with the expectation that "of course everyone goes to college." I somehow met him through a friend of a friend of a friend at some event in college, and we ended up somehow hitting it off. He told me he went to UIC, but it turns out he'd dropped out about six months before I met him. When he told me the truth a few months later, I didn't blame him for lying to me.

10. The best $900 I've ever spent was to pay his community college tuition. I finally convinced him to go back to school this semester, but then a series of events (some partially his fault, some not at all) depleted his savings. Convincing him to accept the money was among the hardest things I've ever done, but also the best. I still worry, sometimes, that the money will somehow end up coloring our friendship, but thus far that hasn't been the case. I teared up the first time he emailed me from his new college email address. I am so, so, incredibly proud of him for going back.

Scraps, Buggs, and the last 100 days of 2009

2009-09-23T10:45:00.011-04:00

First of all, thanks to 266, Jo, and Katie (via comment, there's no list in her post) for giving me the Honest Scrap award.

Thanks guys! The award comes with rules (don't they all?) which I may or may not follow at some later date. Part of it involves listing 10 blogs. I listed 15 that I love not too long back, and I have new favorites that belong on any list I'd make. Essentially, this would mean cutting the old 15 to 7 or 8 to make room for some new folks, and that would just be too difficult an endeavor. Maybe I'll figure out a way to do it at some point, but for now I'm not going to. A genuine thank you, though, to Katie, 266, and Jo. I appreciate the recognition.

This morning I've had quite a bit of blogger's block. I thought about writing the 10 things about myself for the honest scrap, but I couldn't come up with 2, let alone 10. I thought about writing about two fat tax articles in Slate, but the post never quite got off the ground.

I got my new bodybugg last night, which was pretty exciting. I'm going to even go crazy and post a Katie J style screenie:

It's pretty cool, how you can actually track the day through it. I went home during my lunch hour to plug it in, but I didn't get to put it on until after work. Technically, work ends at like 5:30, but the bodybugg screenie reveals the truth: I totally went home a little early because I was giddy about getting to use it. I strapped it on, then walked to the gym, getting there around 5:30. I put in a little over 20 minutes on the elliptical machine, then did the 6-7 Yoga Fundamentals class. This was my very first yoga class there (and the first class at the gym that I successfully completed). I'm actually quite sore from it, but looking at the bugg it had a pretty disappointing burn. Walking home, and then freaking out because I lost the digital display at the gym, which I did from 7-8, was way more of a burn. For the record, yes, I really did lose the digital display within 12 hours of getting it, and no, it hasn't turned up anywhere yet. I ordered another this morning after confirming with my gym that it hadn't turned up in the lost and found. Boo for losing $100 to idiocy.

Making dinner from 8 to 8:30, and then Biggest Loser from 8:30 to 10, were terrible in terms of calorie burn. This just in: sitting in front of the TV's not much exercise. I did love in Biggest Loser how they were talking about burning 6000 calories a day and using their buggs to track it. It really gave me a concept of what actually is required to get Biggest Loser type losses, and why it's not possible in the real world when you need to devote 8-10 hours a day to work. However, it also really brought to the forefront the idea that even though I can't have Biggest Loser weeks, it's eminently possible to have a Biggest Loser day every now and then. Since I don't have to care for a family, I'm able to block off a weekend day every now and then. Yes, I'm not going to be able to burn 6000 calories a day every day, but I damn well can burn 6000 calories a day twice a month.

I cleaned my apartment from around 10:30 to midnight which, needless to say, turned out to be a much better work out than watching TV.

Seeing the chart, thus far, has been an amazing motivator. I promise a full review of the bugg once I've had it for more than 24 hours, but for now I love it and would highly recommend it to anyone. If you're on the fence, get one. Just try not to lose the digital display the very first day.

Anyway, during my blogger's block, I was taking a peak at a few other blogs, and found that Diane over at Fit to the Finish had linked to a Hot 100 challenge being hosted by South Beach Steve. As of today, there are 100 days left in the year. The point of the challenge is to make a few goals that are attainable, measurable, and that you have complete control over, and to check in and measure your progress on the goals at least once every 10 days. So, you can't do "Eat 200 calories a day" since that's not attainable, you can't do "Don't eat too much" because that's not measurable, and you can't do "lose 10 pounds" because you don't have complete control over it. I think this challenge is probably a really good idea for me, because my goals tend to fall into the category of ones I don't have complete control over, so it would be nice to add a few non-weight goals into my repertoire. Anyway, here's what my goals are going to be:

1. Have two "Biggest Loser" (6000+ calorie burn on my Bodybugg) days a month. For September, I'm only going to require one since there's not much of the month left. I discussed the motivation/concept of biggest loser days above, and I think it's going to be a damn awesome experiment.

2. Work out an average of 5 days/week. This is important, and this is attainable. Work outs are my weak spot, and I'd like to push myself into changing that habit. Note the use of the word average, though: some weeks work or life will mean that I can't get to the gym 5 days a week, and that's okay so long as I make it up.

3. Go to the Gym at least 15 times each month. When I avoid the gym, not only do I burn fewer calories, I waste money. I pay for a very expensive gym membership, and hot damn I'm going to use it. My membership is $69 a month, this would mean I'm paying $4.60 a workout, which to me is an acceptable amount. If I go 20 times a month, each workout becomes $3.45 a pop.

4. Keep average calories below 1400, and don't exceed 2000 in a single day. I'm making this limit relatively high, in fact, more than I eat most days right now. I generally shoot for around 1200, and go under more days than I go over. But, if I'm stepping up workouts, I'm probably going to end up increasing calories a bit, and there's no shame in that. The 2000 top is to stave off binges, and, for when I do binge, to encourage me to stop before things get really bad. It also let's me comfortably enjoy holidays and special events, while still pushing me to maintain a good average.

Those are my goals for the rest of 2009. 100 days. Doable.

Tuesday Weigh In

2009-09-22T09:58:00.003-04:00

Weight: 245.9
BMI: 42.20

Well, it could be worse. Losing 2.1 pounds in a week isn't all that bad. I know that. I should be happy. And yet . . .

I won't lie, I'm pissed. I lost .2 pounds last week, and all I could pull this week was a 2.1? A plain 2.1 isn't enough for my stretch goal. I need to clock weekly losses of 2.2+.

Honestly, if it was any old week, I wouldn't be discouraged by a 2.1 pound loss. It's just that I had such a bad week last week, so this week should've been a good week, and it just wasn't. Grrr.

And I know I shouldn't be discouraged or upset. 2.1 pounds is big. But I just feel like it's not big enough.

Edited to add: I've calmed down a bit and realize that 2.1 pounds is a good week and that I should be happy with it. I won't lie, part of me is still a little GRRR, but that's life. I did well this week, and I'll do better next week. I can do this.

Hadley and the new suit jacket (with pictures)

2009-09-20T20:53:00.012-04:00

So, I've got an enormous meeting today. If you'd noticed me slacking in commenting, it's because I've been ridiculously busy at work. A lot of that work is going to come to fruition in a meeting this afternoon.

At my office, every one wears a suit every day but Friday. However, us low-level policy folks are typically allowed to keep our suit jackets in our offices. Sure, I need to wear it to occasional meetings and events, and I'll put my jacket on if I know I'm going to be wandering where the highest-ups are. In all, though, I don't wear it much. Thus, even though I'm now wearing size 18 suit pants, I hadn't bought anything smaller than my original 22 jacket. It just hadn't seemed worth it. Last week, though, the tent like nature of my 22 jacket was starting to get to me:

So, with my big Monday meeting, I decided that this weekend, enough was enough. I went to Macy's, determined to pick up a size 18 jacket of my favorite suit. (Madison suit by Calvin Klein, that's the one where I have the 20 and 18 pants.) But, they had no 18s. No 20s, either. Only 22s and 16s. After a "Grr" I tried on the size 16. IT FIT. I am not shitting you. Granted it's all stretchy and plus sized and a little too tight, but check it out:

And while I was there, I decided to pick up the size 16 pants, just for giggles and to shrink into. In all but the side view of the size 16 jacket (which I just retook because the first one was terrible) I'm actually wearing the 16 pants. They're still too tight for me to wear to work, but they're buttonable. (Mind you, I just declared the 18s work appropriate on Thursday, so it'll be a while.)

And, you know, while I'm posting pictures, I thought it would be worth showing you the shirt I'm wearing underneath the suits:

(For the record, the weird lumps are mostly from the too small pants.) Anyway, guess what size the shirt is? You know, just if you had to throw one out there. Oh, all right, I'll show you:

Yes, that is a size Large. No X's. Just a large. I shit you not.

I've still got a long way to go before I can wear regular sizes in most clothes, but it's pretty awesome to have one size large shirt that actually fits and fits me well. I have the same shirt in XL in two colors, and while I wear them, they both feel a bit on the big size.

Anyway, I'm really happy about the suit jacket. I love the way it looks, and I'm damn excited to wear it. It's definitely still tight, and I doubt I'll keep it buttoned during the day. (I also took a photo of it unbuttoned, then tried the button and it was all badass and "Hey I maybe sort of have a waist instead of just fat into fat into one big blobby circle of fat.")

That 22 jacket used to be tight on me. It used to be fabulous. It used to be my favorite suit jacket. Today, I'm wearing the size 16 version, and you know what? It's so much better.

I know I have a long way to go. Another 100ish pounds to lose is no small battle. But right now, in this very moment, I feel like I've already accomplished a lot.

I hope everyone has a great Monday, and wish me luck at my meeting!

Placebos, Nocebos, and why you've got to believe

2009-09-18T10:33:00.005-04:00

Most everyone has heard of the placebo effect. Essentially, if a doctor gives you a sugar pill and says it's going to make you feel better, you'll end up feeling a bit better, even though the pill did nothing at all. When you think your body is going to get better, you're likely to get better. In recent years, the placebo effect has actually been getting stronger, to the extent that even a few old standby drugs, like Prozac, will sometimes fail to prove their effects are statistically significant. (A really cool article on how the placebo effect is getting stronger is here.)

The placebo effect has a lesser known, decidedly evil cousin: the nocebo effect. The nocebo effect is just what it sounds like. When you're told something won't work, it won't work. If you're told you're going to die, and you believe it, you might even die. Scary stuff.

Those of you who read my blog know that I'm pretty damn into science, math, and reason. So I say this not in a bullshit pseudoscience The Secret sort of way.

You've got to believe.

You have to do this, too, all the working out and the hunger and the drinking water and building up calorie deficits day after day. But you have to believe you're doing it too. Believe what you're doing will work, and it seems that, on the margins, it's more likely to.

For reasons science hasn't yet figured out, people who genuinely believe they're going to get better are more likely to do so, and people who believe they won't get better sometimes end up doing just that. So go ahead, drink the koolaid, and tell yourself you are going to lose the weight. It's not going to be quite as effective as a guy in a white coat telling you his sugar pill will cure what ails you, but it very well might end up helping out.

You can do this. I can do this, too. And you know what? I think we both will.

And in other news, yesterday I started wearing my size 18 pants as my standard work pair. The size 20s we're just too big. I'm wearing them again today and they feel great. As someone who spends most of my time these days in oversized clothes, getting to wear a pair that really fits is a nice treat.

Daily weigh ins vs. weekly weigh ins

2009-09-17T11:12:00.007-04:00

"Should I weigh in every day or just once a week?" It's a common question. And I'm going to give an answer that is very true, but one I think people don't hear enough:

Scientifically speaking, you should probably weigh yourself every day.

Now, this is a post I've been mulling over this for a while. Erin (who, by the way, has a great blog that I'd encourage you to check out) commented on a post of mine not too long back that "the almighty 'they' discourage weighing in daily." And in terms of the diet world, she's right. Weight Watchers, Spark People, and most other diet plans and diet books say you should only weigh once a week. The typical justifications are that the scale can change greatly from day to day, meaning it's not all that accurate, and that there are emotional downsides with seeing false losses and gains throughout the week. Essentially, conventional wisdom in the diet world says that weighing yourself every day can discourage you and stress you out. But conventional wisdom isn't always right.

Weighting yourself every day is actually a good idea according to science. A 2005 study showed that "Dieters who weighed themselves regularly shed more pounds over a 24-month period than people who didn't regularly weigh themselves. Those who weighed themselves daily lost the most." Another University of Minnesota study "found that those who weighed themselves daily lost an average of 12 pounds over 2 years; weekly scale watchers lost only 6. The once-a-day group also was less likely to regain weight loss." And there are more studies out there with much the same message.

So weighing daily makes you likely to lose more weight and keep it off once it's gone. But what about the emotional damage of daily weigh ins? At least one study in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology says that's a myth. Here's what they found:

Several recent studies suggest that daily weighing is important for long-term weight control, but concerns have been raised about possible adverse psychological effects.
...
We found no evidence that increases in frequency of weighing or daily weighing per se had any adverse effects in this study population. Rather, increases in self-weighing were associated with increases in dietary restraint (p less than 0.001), decreases in disinhibition (p less than 0.003), and decreases in depressive symptoms (p less than 0.002). Moreover, those who weighed daily at 18 months were less likely to report having = 4 binge episodes per month (p = 0.03). Daily weighing appears to be an important aspect of weight loss maintenance and was not associated with adverse psychological effect.

So there's scientific evidence that weighing daily isn't emotionally damaging. It even seems to decrease depression and binging! And why are we supposed to weigh in weekly, again?

The answer to the question "should I weigh myself every day or once a week?" seems to be every day. Scientifically speaking, if you want to play the probabilities, you should step on your scale every day.

That said, just because something is likely to be right for you doesn't mean something is right for you. If you're not comfortable with daily weigh ins, then you shouldn't weigh in daily. It might be that you get extremely depressed by stepping on the scale, or that you truly can't stand seeing the fluctuations. Maybe for you this journey is more the emotional or even spiritual aspects, and that while you do want to track your weight, you don't care much about the numbers. You need to do what works for you.

My advice:

Seriously consider weighing in every day. It may not work for you, but there's some good evidence that it more likely to work than you might think. But, at the end of the day, trust yourself. If you don't want to do daily weigh ins, don't do daily weigh ins. Stick with weekly, monthly, or whatever else makes you happy. The right answer for you might not be the right answer for everyone else. And with that in mind, next time you hear someone mindlessly parrot the diet industry's standard "you shouldn't weigh yourself more than once a week," let them know that science, at least, says otherwise.

Oh, and to answer the requests from yesterday, I will review the Body Bugg once I get mine. It shipped last night, and should be arriving on the 22nd.

Why yes, I am going to talk about Biggest Loser today

2009-09-16T10:37:00.003-04:00

I'd never watched the Biggest Loser before. Sure, there were all those non-reason reasons for why I don't watch most shows: I don't watch much tv in general, and watch very little reality TV in particular. More than that, though, I definitely had an aversion to the fact that it was a fat TV show. Sure, I've been fat since the end of high school, but it wasn't really something I liked to think about. I wasn't the sort of person who went on endless diets (this is exactly my third). I cared more about other things. I mean, I knew I was fat, but if you gave me a list of things to self identify with, I'd be far more likely to choose things like economist, traveler, film buff, adventurer, analyst, New Yorker, etc. than fat. It's not that I wasn't fat, it was just that, well, I was other things too, and those were the things I cared about more.

Since this journey began, I've been thinking of myself as fat. Not as the first thing I am, but up there on the list. A big part of my life right now is that I am morbidly obese, and that I'm working hard to change that. In terms of how I spend my time, energy, money and thoughts, it's clear that "being fat" and some day, hopefully, being not quite so fat, are really, really important to me.

I've even started watching fat shows, really, for no other basis than they're about fat people. Drop Dead Diva is an atrocious and ridiculous show, yet one I tivo every Sunday and reliably watch. (I'm not a lawyer, and still their concept of the law makes me want to scream at the writers and be like "is it really that hard to do some basic research, you idiots?") I watch More to Love. The show makes me want to take the people aside and say "no, sweetie, Luke did not plan that date for you, the producers did, and while we're talking, could you please try to be less dumb?"

So, with my new found interest in fat media, I of course set my Tivo last night for Biggest Loser. Since I hate commercials almost as much as I hate coach seats on airplanes and pickles, I didn't start watching until 8:30. By 8:32 I was sobbing.

The show is great. It's fabulous. It's wrenching. I cried more than I'd like to admit, and got inspired by several of the sappy thing that are supposed to inspire you. I was doing leg lifts and sit ups on the couch as I watched, breaking occasionally when the tears overwhelmed me. It blew me away.

Right now, my BMI is 42.56. That means I'm fatter than Abby, Amanda, Dina and Liz were at the start. On July 7th, when I started this journey, my BMI was 47.71. At that point, I was fatter than everyone but Antoine, Danny, Julio, Rudy, Sean, and Shay. As someone who's bigger than 4 of the Biggest Loser contestants, there's no doubt I'm in terrible shape. But only 72 short days ago, I would've been bigger than 10 of them. I'm making progress.

I bought myself a bodybugg last night. At $250, I probably shouldn't have gone for it as an impulse purchase, but as I was thinking about it last night it became something I really wanted. I think it's going to be incredibly motivating to see how small things can make a difference. They're running a promotion where the digital display (normally $100) is included free, so if anyone else has been on the line, this might be the moment.

Tuesday Weigh In

2009-09-15T10:32:00.006-04:00

Weight: 248.0

Well . . .

I only lost .2 pounds this past week. This is a major disappointment. I'm glad I did still manage to lose, but I'm more distressed by just how bad the number is, and how off track I've been.

I didn't go to the gym yesterday.

Sigh.

I'm saddened and I'm stressed. I feel like I'm losing my fire. I'm just not doing as good a job as I used to. I'm not as dedicated. I'm just lost.

I think I'm going to hold back from posting daily weigh ins for a bit, and see what happens. I'm still going to weigh myself daily, since it's an important motivator, but I've been stressing over posting them. It makes me feel like I have to start every post talking about my weigh in.

Okay, here's where things get interesting. There are two different ways I could start this next paragraph, and I'm not honestly sure which one is correct.

Option one: Weigh ins are important, but weigh ins aren't everything. Yes, the scale matters, but the scale lies too. What's going on in your head and your day to day habits are important, independently of the scale.

Option two: Weigh ins are important. Weigh ins are, in fact, everything. In the end, the ultimate arbiter of success is moving the numbers down. There's certainly a good range of healthy weights, and sure BMI's not perfect and there are bodybuilders who count as obese, but for god's sake, I'm not a bodybuilder and 278 at 5'4 is just not healthy. I'm morbidly obese. The head game, the habits, those are all nice, and they can help along the way, but they're honestly irrelevant when compared to morbid obesity. It's a trump card, it's all that matters, nothing else even counts.

I'm not sure which I believe. I know I believe in the primacy of the scale. At the end of the day, the success of any weight loss endeavor hangs on whether or not you actually drop pounds.

But still, I'm going to stop starting every post with a weigh in. I will post Tuesday weigh ins to remain accountable. (I'll still be weighing daily, keeping charts and graphing my progress, and I may occasionally share extra good news on non-Tuesdays.) I think discussing the head game, the habits, and the philosophy is more interesting. I'd rather be able to post about those without worrying about commenting on each morning's number.

A few more thoughts on that intern lunch

2009-09-14T10:52:00.009-04:00

250.5

I almost didn't post my weight. Draft one of this post began with "I'm not going to post my weight today." I woke up late for work today, so I didn't really have time to go to the bathroom. It was one of those "stumble to scale, stumble to brush teeth, toss on clothes and get out the door" day. I, in fact, almost didn't weigh myself I was so late.

I'm extremely worried I won't have a loss this week. I'd need to drop 2.4 pounds day to day to even have a .1 pound loss week to week, which are not the best odds ever. I do have swings that big, though, and my weight this morning is artificially high, but it's still not looking great.

I did go to the gym on Saturday, and I'm glad I did so. Thank you all for encouraging me. I even tried running on the treadmill. It felt like I needed a bra for my butt. So, I think I perhaps am going to stick to the elliptical until I lose a bit more weight. I'm going to try to go to the gym today after work. If I don't mention tomorrow that I went, you all are encouraged to hassle me in the comments.

Last week, my post on the intern who wouldn't eat lunch generated two thoughtful response posts, one from Mrs. Sheila and another from Mommy2Joe. (Also, great comments on the post itself, I'd encourage you to read them if you haven't yet.) They both made good points about how we should try not to judge people for their food choices: for most intents and purposes I agree with that. (I think it's fine to discuss things here, in blog land, but it certainly would've been wrong if I'd come back from lunch and started gossiping with co-workers about the incident.)

Both of them also argue that we shouldn't subordinate our own eating plans to social/work situations: "But you know what? I’m trying to lose some weight right now. And it’s not easy, and I have to pretty much think about it every single minute of the day. . . . Maybe you care, maybe you don’t. But, it’s MY priority," wrote Mommy2Joe. "I have come to the conclusion I know what works for my body, and I won't 'take one for the team' to avoid being judged. You want to think I am so self centered that I only care about myself, then so be it. I can't eat your stinkin potatoes, and no matter how much you whine I won't even smell them!" said Mrs. Sheila.

Both of them, and many of the commenters, brought the issue into focus in a way I hadn't really thought about: what she was essentially saying with her actions was "sticking exactly with my planned diet is more important than minding my manners for lunch with my boss." Which to me says either she didn't understand that there were smart choices she could've made (picking at a green salad with no dressing is not many calories) or did realize those choices existed but valued dogmatism over being pragmatic.

One of the things Mommy2Joe brought up was that we would have been more accepting "If she was a vegan, or if she had severe food allergies, or if she just had dental work done." She's right, but I don't see any contradiction between the fact that those are acceptable excuses for doing something normally perceived as rude. "Not abandoning my moral principles that eating animals is wrong is more important than minding my manners for lunch with my boss." I don't share those principles, but I certainly understand the point. "Eating something I'm allergic to and needing an ambulance to be called is even more disruptive than not eating." That makes sense. "Not being in massive amounts of pain and needing to spend hundreds on new dental work is worth more than participating fully in the lunch."

She wasn't saying those things. She was saying "not picking at a salad and consuming maybe 15 calories is worth more to me than being respectful of my very important boss, who I'll eat lunch with precisely twice."

In the end, I think she made a bad choice, and conveyed a message that you don't want to convey. I don't know what got her to that point: as several of you pointed out, maybe she's lost massive amounts of weight to get where she is, maybe she had a big weigh in the next day. But, still, I don't see any of that as reason enough to not just order a salad to pick at.

It's a shame that we do have a culture of food, where it is rude in a business situation to not eat. And while individually, I'm going to strive to be someone who doesn't contribute to that, for now it is our reality, whether we like it or not. So, considering the circumstances, she made the wrong call, but I sure do wish the circumstances were different. In the mean time, I guess, we can all do our best not to judge, and not to contribute to the culture of food.

I've got a confession to make

2009-09-11T12:34:00.006-04:00

Weight: 247.7

Finally a weigh in below my Tuesday number. It only took till Friday. I was glad to finally hit a new low, and gladder still to have crossed the 30 pound mark.

Okay, so I've got a bit of a confession to make: I haven't been going to the gym recently. Not just like, this week, but more like, "since the end of August."

One of the things I learned growing up was to always be extra nice to guards, doormen, receptionists, and secretaries. Big smile, say hello, ask how they're doing, and be genuinely interested in the response. Just how I've always been taught to act, and how I've always acted. One of the results of this, as I've grown up, is that I tend to develop a decently good relationship with whoever is working the front desk where ever I go.

My gym was no different. About two weeks in, the two guys at the front desk were clearly rooting for me. Shortly thereafter, they started pestering me about doing a spinning class. (It's worth noting that there's no additional charge for classes, so they weren't trying to upsale me or get me to spend more money.) "You'll love it!" one said. "You can go as fast or slow as you want!" said the other. I demurred, saying maybe another time. One night, when I was leaving, one of the two was alone at the desk. He told me I should really consider giving one of the classes a try, just once. In a moment of shocking honesty, I told him that I was scared, didn't think I was ready, and wouldn't even know how to use the bikes. He reiterated the "as slow or fast as you want" thing, and offered to show me how to use the bikes. I didn't really know how to give a flat out "no thank you," so said something along the lines of "maybe another time, I've really got to rush home."

A few days later, he said, "c'mon, the room's empty right now, and it's 20 minutes until the next spinning class. Let me show you how to use the bikes!" I agreed, and he showed me. At this point, I felt like I really had to do the class, and that I was being silly and overly scared. I decided to give it a try.

And?

I failed.

Literally. 15 minutes into the class I just couldn't keep going, and got off my bike and left the room. I was despondent. I don't try things and then fail. I just don't. I'm the sort of person who will throw myself wholeheartedly into a task after I set it. I could literally count the number of times I've set out to do a specific task and just blatantly failed at it. Each (rare) instance has effected me greatly.

I stumbled over to the elliptical machine and weakly put in 30 minutes on it, too embarrassed to leave past the front desk before the scheduled end of the class. When, at the appropriate "the class should be over now" moment I finally did leave, the front desk guys both excitedly asked me how it was. "Hard," I replied noncommittally.

"But the important thing is that you did it, Hadley. All those classes are is going from point a to point b. You did that. And every other time you go it's just going to get easier."

It was all I could do not to cry on the way home.

That was in late August. I haven't been to the gym since. Most days, I go for walks to get some exercise, but I haven't done high intensity stuff since that day.

I know what I need to do. I need to suck it up and get back to the gym. I'm scared, yes, but I'll get over it. The only way to do so is to face my fears and start going again. I can do this: I just need to, you know, actually do it.

Credit scores, reports, and the things we get from our parents

2009-09-10T11:41:00.003-04:00

Weight: 248.7

So, I have a kindle. I love it. One of the things I love most about it is that you can download the first chapter for free of any book you're interested in. So, if I'm say, looking for a humor book, I can download a few chapters until I run into one that really cracks me up. Recently, I was looking for a personal finance book. I'm not in debt, but many personal finance begin with the importance of getting out of debt. One of the things that came up in several of the books was "Getting out of debt is a lot like losing weight."

Today's post is going to be a lot more about money than it will be about weight loss, but there's a lot of overlap between the two. As we travel this journey of self betterment, building healthy bodies, I think it's worth spending a bit of time to get our financial houses in order as well.

I've always been interested in finance. Through most of college I thought I would go into investment banking. Since before I can remember, I had a "junior" bank account and my parents encouraged me to save some of my allowance and birthday money, and later baby sitting earnings and writing prize winnings. (I'm not much of a writer these days, but in High School I won some substantive prize money through Scholastic writing competitions, including one for the best nonfiction portfolio in New York City.) In my senior year of high school, my father went with me to Citibank to help me open real, regular savings and checking accounts complete with a debit card. Growing up, I was instilled with things that I didn't recognize as good habits, but just accepted as truth: you don't spend more than you have, you pay your bills off in full each month, and you always pay on time.

(This is where one could note that there are all sorts of food lessons I didn't learn from my parents, like don't eat when you're not hungry, get in fruits and vegetables, avoid processed junk, etc, but let's not be negative.)

As someone with that interest in personal finance, I sort of knew that I was mostly on the right track. I'd been paying bills on time and in full, I've started saving for retirement through a Roth IRA, and I make sure to spend less than I earn. But for a good long while, I've known that there was something else I should have done that I just hadn't yet.

For a really long time, I was scared of finding out my credit report and score. In college, I had a small medical bill that my parents insurance was supposed to pay. I sent it to my mom, who swore she sent it to her insurance, and then no one ever followed up on it. This was in maybe February or March. Spring passed and I went home for the summer. That fall, I came back to find a whole host of letters about the apparently unpaid medical bill. I was furious at my mother (she said she'd taken care of it, although in hindsight, at 19 years old I should have been responsible enough to follow up on it myself) . I paid the bill immediately, and called my mother and cried and screamed and told her she'd ruined my credit and that I'd never be able to get a mortgage or a car loan and that potential employers would see it and that it would be her fault if I didn't get a job and just all these horribly nasty things. My mother and I don't fight often, and I wasn't the type of melodramatic kid who said stuff like that on a regular basis. I was, honestly, furious, and petrified that I'd have this black mark hanging over me for 10 years all because my stupid mother hadn't made sure the insurance paid a stupid bill. I literally wouldn't return her calls for weeks. It's among the most self indulgent outbursts I've ever had (really, a 19 year old can look into these things for herself) , but it also still ranks up there as among my most terrifying experiences to this day.

So, since that happened, 4ish years ago, I'd been afraid to check my credit report.

Well guess what I just did? I checked my credit report. Each year, you're entitled by federal law to a free copy of your credit report from each of the three reporting bureaus. The only place you should go to get this score is the official government site: https://www.annualcreditreport.com. Do not go anywhere else: freecreditreport.com, freetriplescore.com, all the other ones you see advertising on TV are all scams. Don't go to them, they're not free, and they're not legit, in spite of their catchy jingles.

The missed medical bill wasn't on there. But what was, was fabulous. In about 6th grade, my parents gave me a credit card to use when I went shopping with my friends. In the spring of 9th grade, my dad decided to have me use a different one that would give him rewards, but at the time I thought nothing of it. But there both cards were: each with a decade of beautiful on time payments. My own credit cards (I have two, one I got in college and a more recent one that gives rewards) were there too, each with their on time payments. The $1000 credit line attached to my checking account (which I've never actually used) was there too, with on time payments dating back to when I was a senior in high school. It was beautiful. There was an error that I'm going to mail them about to get corrected (the birthdate's off by a few decades) but other than that everything was all correct and filled with green boxes for years of accounts in good standing.

Then I went to check my actual credit score. This is the number between 300 and 850 that most people think about when they think about credit scores. Until recently, it was impossible to get your credit score for free. However, an ad-supported site called Credit Karma (sort of like mint.com) now lets you see your TransUnion credit score. I'm pretty cautious about providing personal information on the web, and will research sites a bunch before I'll input information. I've got enough sources to consider it safe.

And I did check it. The result: 766. High enough that I could actually qualify for the best mortgage rates at 23.

So right now, I'm just feeling thankful to my parents. For all the good habits they taught me growing up, and for the decade long record of on-time bill payments they gave me. I called them to thank them, and though I didn't apologize to my Mom (I possibly should have) , I did tell her that the medical bill did not show up.

Today, my financial house is much cleaner than it used to be. I'm glad I faced my fears and looked at the report. Knowing that I do have my finances under control makes me feel a lot closer to having my waist under control. Mostly, I feel like I'm getting closer each day to being the person I really want to be.

How closely do you think money and weight loss are related? Do you feel better than one than at the other? And the question I'm most curious about: do you check in on your credit report and/or score, and why or why not?

I also just want to quickly reiterate: please don't don't don't use a scam site. The only place to get the three annual reports you're entitled to by the government is https://www.annualcreditreport.com. The only reputable site for getting your credit score for free that I know of is https://www.creditkarma.com. Be extremely careful anywhere else, and avoid the credit sites that advertise on TV like the devil.

Ah, interns

2009-09-09T15:13:00.006-04:00

Weight: 249.1

The scale's up, but scales do that sometimes when you weigh in every day.

So, I work in DC as low-level economist. I'm 23, and only a little more than a year out of college. Now, there are plenty of lame things about my job (low pay, long hours) and about DC in general (it's built on a swamp), but one of the cooler things is that you get interns.

Now, I suppose, technically, I don't get interns. My boss gets interns. But here's a secret about DC: 90% of things that don't involve cameras or schmoozing gets delegated. This semester, my boss has two interns, both of whom have masters degrees and graduated from college in the 1990s. In practice, however, this means I'm managing two people who are 10 years older than me, including occasionally asking them to make photocopies.

However each semester, before my boss starts ignoring the interns (aside from occasional "go ask Hadley" instructions), we take them out to lunch. Technically, I suppose, he takes us all out to lunch, but the point is it's always a good big fun long expensive but free to me lunch. Today was our lunch.

Both of our interns are hoping to transfer into policy from other careers. One of them, before this, was doing real estate in NYC. I'm probably, at one point, going to talk about the NYC thing. (I grew up there, all sorts of associated hang ups.)

But anyway, so we went out to lunch, and she said as the waitress was handing out menus "oh no thanks I'm not going to be able to eat anything off it." I replied back, sort of not sure what was up, "They have all sorts of vegan and vegetarian and whatever else stuff, and I'm sure they could work around any allergies" or something along those lines, just trying to make her feel like included and allowed. "I'm on Jenny Craig," she said back.

I'm going to just go out and for the record say she's not fat. Not at all. Maybe a size 8 or 10, if I had to guess. Not a stick, but well within normal.

When I was emailing the interns yesterday, I mentioned that it was a twice a semester (once at the beginning, once at the end) tradition, and that they should prepare any questions they had for our boss, since this is one of the few times they'll have him as a captive audience. I don't say this to be snide or to brag, but our boss is a big shot. This is a special thing. And every ounce of me was so blown away by the fact that she would come to this lunch and not eat, not even order a dressing-less salad to pick at.

Appalled is too strong a word, but it's the one that comes to mind. I was put off, maybe? I don't know. Then I felt bad and like I was being judgmental: who says you have to eat at social events anyway, and shouldn't I be supportive of anyone who's dieting since, after all, I'm going through the same thing? Why was I so thrown off by this?

Now I just don't know what to think.

Is it bad that I'm not as dedicated to my diet as she is? That I ate the restaurant's fatty food, and not even a salad but a Bacon Tomato and Cheddar sandwich? Is the reason she's thin and I'm not (yet) because I'm not willing to loudly proclaim "I'm on a diet so I'm not going to eat here"?

Or maybe it's not that I've not gone far enough, but rather that she's gone past the mark? Not eating at an important lunch like this is, quite frankly, a huge mistake. For the rest of the program, my boss is probably going to call her "whatshername, the intern who wouldn't eat lunch." (Our summer intern, who spent three years as a consultant and was one year into a PhD program at the London School of Economics is still known as "whatshername, the pescetarian" when on our initial lunch out she voted against a steakhouse and explained that she was a vegetarian except for fish.) We can't give up our lives, our work, for diets. It just won't work, and even if it does, are those sacrifices worth making?

I just don't know.

Recording post for GAG Week 2

2009-09-09T14:41:00.009-04:00

If you're reading this post looking for regular posting, keep moving. I'll be using this post to keep track of GAG's week two challenge, which is as follows:

For every 8 oz of water you drink, you will give yourself 10 points.
For every 15 minutes of activity (NO house cleaning and "normal" activites should be counted here) outside of your normal routine give yourself 10 points.
(For clarification purpose: do not count housecleaning or regular daily activities. DO count all forms of exercise. )
For every day that you track your foods whether it be on your blog via in text or photos, give yourself 20 points.
For every evening you sleep for a minimum of 8 hours, give yourself 20 points!

Tuesday:

Water: 3 24oz bottles of water, or 9*8oz = 90 points
Exercise: none :( = 0 points
Food:
Breakfast: Cottage cheese, Banana. A little less than 200 calories.
Lunch: Catered work lunch of a turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomato, bacon and mayo. Yeah, I know, badness. I'm guessing 600 calories.
Snack: 1/2 apple = 35 calories
Dinner: Lean Cuisine fettuccine alfredo over a pint of cut up cherry tomatoes. 15 small stalks of asparagus with one tablespoon of Parmesan cheese. ~425 calories
Desert: Healthy choice ice cream bar: 100 calories

Total: 1370

Sleep: 8 hours! so 20 points for that.

Points for Tuesday: 130

Food tracking for Wednesday:
Breakfast: Banana, cottage cheese = 200 calories
Lunch: Another lunch meeting, this one at a restaurant. I had a bacon cheddar and tomato sandwich, and even some (totally unnecessary but delicious) sweet potato fries. For food I don't control I like to guess up, and I'm going to go with 900 calories.
No dinner or Snack

Total: 1100

8 hours of sleep (20 points)
No exercise (0 points)
5 glasses of water (50 points)

Points for Wednesday: 90 points

Thursday:

Breakfast: String cheese, Dannon small light and fit yogurt, 140 calories
Lunch: Banana, roast beef sandwich, 300 calories
Snack: Chewy granola bar, 90 calories
Dinner: 1.5 pieces of Purdue perfect portions chicken, 12 stalks of asparagus, 2 cups of broccoli, 1 T of butter used to dress both the asparagus and the broccoli, 550 calories
Total: 1080

8 hours of sleep - sort of. I'm going to give myself credit for going into bed with the lights off and trying to sleep 9 hours before I needed to wake up. It took me hours to fall asleep, but I think it's reasonable to count intention here: 20 points

Water: 10 glasses = 100 points

I still didn't exercise!

Points for Thursday: 140 points

Friday:

Breakfast: Banana, 100 calories
Lunch: Grande skim latte from Starbucks, 130 calories
Dinner: disastrous. Mac and cheese, baguette, actual cheese, two glasses of wine, terrible. I'm guesstimating 1800 calories.

Total: 2130

6 16 oz glasses for 120 points
45 minute walk for 30 points
8 hours of sleep for 20 points

Points for Friday: 190

Saturday

No breakfast
Lunch: Smart Ones baked zitti, green beans with olive oil and garlic, 500 calories
Dinner: Lean Cuisine fettucini alfredo over a pint of cherry tomatoes, 400 calories
Desert: Milk, 100 calorie hostess cupcakes, 250 calories

Total: 1150

8 hours of sleep 20 points
45 minutes at the GYM! 30 points
2 24 oz bottles, 1 16 oz glass: 80 points

Points for Saturday: 170

Sunday:

Breakfast: Banana, cottage cheese, 200 calories
Lunch: 7 ribs. I'm having trouble finding exactly comparable calorie values, but it was less than a half rack. I'm going with 600, but I have no idea if that's right
Snack: 100 calorie hostess cupcake thing, 100 calories
Dinner: 3 cups of grapes, 180 calories (who knew grapes had that many calories? Or maybe it's just that 3 cups is a ton of grapes)

Total: 1080 calories

Exercise: 90 minute walk, 60 points
Water: 3 24 oz bottles, 90 points
8 hours sleep: 20 points

Points for Sunday: 190

Total for the week: 910

Tuesday Weigh In

2009-09-08T09:44:00.004-04:00

Weight: 248.2
BMI: 42.6o

This is a really good weigh in. Last week's Tuesday weigh in was 251.6, so today represents a loss of 3.4 pounds week to week. A nice number. Today's weigh in also means I've now lost over 5 points of BMI. The 5 point mark is in some ways a particularly big deal: losing 5 points of BMI is enough to go from "Obese" to "Normal." Of course, I'm still very, very, very far from either regular obese or normal, but it's nice to dream.

The weekend with my brother was fun and interesting. Throughout my scale was way up (to the point where I was worried I might not lose this week) but I think that was a function of the departure from my normal schedule. On the basis of this morning's weigh in, it seems as if I was losing weight throughout, even if the scale didn't show it.

Honestly, and I know this is going to sound weird, but this weekend made a life of normal weight eating feel, well, normal. Fine, acceptable, fun even. My brother is the only normal weight person in my immediate family, and this weekend, although it was at my house, was really on his schedule. On Saturday we walked to a small local place for lunch: I ate a delicious BBQ beef brisket sandwich. It was rich and filling, but small. I didn't eat any sides or extras. My brother ate a sandwich and like me, no sides or chips or anything like that. Then we walked to a museum (the International Spy Museum, if anyone's curious). We walked around the museum. We walked to a movie. We didn't eat popcorn or anything there, or snack at any other point during the day. We walked home afterward. Then walked to a restaurant for dinner.

I could keep going, but here's the gist of it: we ate out, and ate well, but not too much. We walked everywhere. We didn't snack. It was normal. It was sustainable. It was a great weekend, and a weekend that felt like "hey, I could live my life like this."

In different but related news, the wavering continues as to whether I'll end up pushing my deadline back from 10/15 to 10/25. The current sustained loss needed (2.876) is higher than my initial sustained loss needed (2.833). It's still better than what it was looking like a day in (2.920). I think for now I'll keep it as is, since if we look at the whole week I did indeed beat the needed pace. However, I'm still not certain. As of now, a day where I lose .4 pounds is a bad day in terms of the goal, even though I know that is and should be a good day. I have to lose .5 pounds for a day to be a winner, and that, quite frankly, is more than I can manage. Still, just a few good days should push it below the 2.800 mark, which would return .4 days to wins, which they are. The sustained losses needed for both my long term goal and my long term stretch goal are at all time lows: they're now at 1.507 at 2.125, respectively.

Oh! My brother did mention that they're going to have me and his fiancee's sister walk down the aisle on the wedding day, so that's a bit of added pressure/inspiration to keep this thing going. He didn't explicitly say "bridesmaid" so I don't know if I'll technically be one of those, but I will be in the procession. Scary!

Weigh ins, challenges, and what's worth reading

2009-09-04T11:59:00.006-04:00

Weight: 250.1
BMI: 42.92

There are lots of great things about being weighing in daily. There's some evidence that weighing in every day (as opposed to less frequently) might be beneficial for losing and maintaining weight. I find it motivating and helpful in staving off binges: there's no time for recovery, no chance to hide my mistakes. But, there are a few parts of daily weigh ins that suck. Like, when you do everything perfectly, like, say, eat 1200 calories and go on a two hour walk, and instead of rewarding you, the scale just says "meh."

Today I was hoping to see the 240s. I worked really quite hard yesterday to make sure I'd get a glimpse of them. But, sometimes, that's just not your luck. So, I'm up .1 pounds.

I'm also starting to worry if I'm maybe being too ambitious with my mini goal. Today's small gain (and the passage of time with the lack of a loss) combine for a scary 2.92 sustained loss for the rest of the goal, which is pretty darn close to the wrong side of reasonable. It's not all lost, though. On July 31st, after all, I was looking at a needed loss of 2.95 to make my last goal, and I made it with time to spare.

I think at this point I'm going to stick with it. It might be a bit too hard, a bit more than I can really do, but I'd rather be pushing myself than feeling like I can slack. If I don't make it, I don't make it, but I'm going to try.

One thing that will be absolutely key is not messing up this weekend. Describing how we're going to handle the holiday is part of this week's GAG challenge. (The second part of the challenge is a recipe, which I will pitifully attempt later in the post.)

My challenge this weekend is going to be sticking on plan with my brother around. He's coming down from Philadelphia on Saturday around noon. Since he's not coming till relatively late in the day, I plan on waking up early and getting in a good long workout. Lunch is probably going to be Five Guys. There, I'll get a little bacon burger with lettuce and tomato. Not the best, but better than it could be. We'll end up getting an order of fries, but I plan to eat not many of them. I'll try to discreetly count them out beforehand. That night we're going out to dinner at Matchbox. I'm planning on the cast iron roasted chicken. I'll eat the carrots first, then the peas, then some of the chicken. I'll avoid all the potatoes.

Sunday morning we'll walk up to the Dupont Circle Farmers market and I'll get some fruit for breakfast. Sunday afternoon and night he's going to be at a friend's bachelor party, so I'll go for a long walk and possibly do a gym workout. We might have to do some sort of breakfast on Monday, but it'll be okay. Both Sunday and Monday will be one meal things, so I can easily make up calories the rest of the day.

As far as a recipe, well, I don't have much experience cooking healthy things for large crowds. So here's a non cooking but still bringing something survival guide:

2 pints of strawberries
1 pint of blueberries
4 packets of splenda

Wash both fruits. Quarter the strawberries. Mix it all together with the splenda, which will help the cut up fruit keep in the afternoon and make it desert-level sweet. Bring a can of fat-free Redi Whip. It's 5 calories for two tablespoons, and the perfect touch.

And, there's my mini-challenge. I'm not sure I enjoy the writing silly response challenges as much as I like the rest of the competition, and may end up opting out of them before too long. The camaraderie (go, team Prancer go!), the competition? I'm there. The drudge homework assignments? Eh, perhaps not so much. (Don't take this as a knock against organizer Mrs. Sheila in any way shape or form. She's fabulously awesome and I'm so grateful she set up the challenge.)

I mean, why do we blog what we blog? If you look at a given post, each sentence and each paragraph has a point, a reason why we wrote it in the first place. Maybe it's to hold ourselves accountable, or to help ourselves figure out something and to help others do the same. Maybe it's to share good news, to (hopefully) make someone laugh, or just to link to something we think is really frigging awesome.

All of you people who stop by and read this blog, I adore you guys. I read your blogs, if I know about them, and comment if I can. There are others who read regularly but leave no footprints beyond showing up on Google Analytics. Every single one of you I know seems awesome from everything I can tell, and I'd be willing to bet on the coolness of those I don't. Because I have these awesome readers (not many, but awesome nonetheless), when I post stuff, it ought to be things that are worth reading. The simple act of posting something says, Trust me guys, I think this is worth your time. And, seriously, "Cut up some fruit and toss some artificial sweetener in there so it won't spoil"? That's not worth reading.

What if I had a better recipe? Would that be worth reading? Well, it might be, but I have no experience whatsoever with this. At 23, I'm just on the cusp of adulthood, and I've only lived as a post-college grown up for a year. I have not once in my entire life tried to cook something healthy for a large group of people. Sure, I could post a recipe I find online and hope it will be good, but I can't vouch for it, I can't say, trust me because I just won't know.

I posted what I was going to do with my brother and the "recipe" not because they were illuminating, helpful, or fun, but because I'm a dirty, dirty point whore. I love accolades and credit of all kinds. When I used to play video games with my brother as a kid, I could spend ages jumping up and down trying to get on a box to get on another box to get a single coin. "Hadley, it's not worth it," he'd tell me, but by gosh if there was a coin there I wanted it. Because that's who I am. I don't do things half way.

So, I'm going to have to figure out what I want to do as far as the challenges. I'm sure, down the road, there will be ones that I have an interesting take on that will work as normal posts. But for the rest? I just don't know. Maybe I'll accept that doing all the mini challenges isn't for me and just pick and choose a few. Maybe I'll cordon them off with a "WARNING: Lame post of Lameness" title so you unsuspecting readers don't accidentally wander in. Another theoretical option would be to actually research all the challenges enough that I could do a good job on them, but since the effort required would be far inordinate to my amount of care, that's just not going to happen.

Sigh.

The contemplation shall continue. Do you guys think you have an implicit contract with your readers to provide, well, posts that are worth reading? How would you approach the whole mini-challenge thing: try to do them all, or ignore all but the ones I find of interest? Do you have any experience with challenges and mini challenges in the past? And last but not least, how totally lame was that "recipe"?

Anyway, I hope you all have a fantabulous Labor Day Weekend. Enjoy your day off (if you get one) and take some time to treasure your family and friends. In all my "how I'll deal with food issues this weekend" shpiel, I left off how incredibly excited and happy I am that I'll get to see my brother. At the end of the day, there really is nothing more important than the ones we love.

I hit my first goal!

2009-09-03T10:56:00.008-04:00

Okay, I know I might have kind of given it away in the title, but check out this weigh in:

Weight: 250.0
BMI: 42.91

Ahhh! YAY! Okay. I should not just write random screamy things as they do nothing to illuminate the post, but by god I just cannot stop smiling.

I started this journey on July 7th. Using that as day 1, today is day 59. When I started, I declared a mini goal of getting to 250 pounds by September 15th. This is the equivalent of 28 pounds and just an eensy bit over 10% of my starting weight. Hitting it required dropping an average of 2.8 pounds/week. Today, September 3rd, 12 days early, I finished my first mini goal.

What now? Well, it's time for a new mini goal!

So, I've got two long term goals, which I call my long term goal and my long term stretch goal. My long term goal is to not be obese at my brother's wedding, which would mean getting my weight down to 175 by August 14th, 2010. My long term stretch goal is to not be overweight at my brother's wedding, which means hitting 145 by that same 8/14/2010. When I started, that meant losing a little under 1.8 pounds/week for my normal goal, and losing a little over 2.3 pounds/week for my stretch goal. Because I've been going above pace, the sustained loss needed to hit those milestones is now a bit over 1.5 pounds/week and a bit over 2.1 pounds/week respectively.

Once I set my first mini goal, I knew the weight I was going to attach to my second mini goal: 233 pounds. At 233 pounds, for the first time in too long, I will no longer be morbidly obese. Morbid is such a wretched word, such a wretched concept, one label I just can't wait to be rid of. My next goal is to not be morbid.

But I need a deadline. Some people don't like deadlines (weight loss isn't a race, after all), but for me they're helpful. It gives me a discreet point to work towards, and an expectation of pace. By attaching a deadline to my goal, I'm more likely to work harder and lose the weight faster.

So, 17 pounds. Back when I thought I'd be hitting 250 on the 15th, I sort of assumed that I'd make Halloween the deadline. Plugging that into calculators this morning (thank you fitday!) that meant a pace of 2.05 pounds/week. That's slower than my stretch goal, and thus way too slow for a mini goal. Mini goals are meant to push me.

The next meaningful date I could think of was Saint Crispin's Day, which is October 25th. An October 25th deadline would mean a loss of 2.29 pounds/week. This is above the pace needed for my stretch goal. The main benefit is that doing things around Saint Crispin's day is just totally badass. I could be all "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers we" and whatnot.

But, I asked myself, is 2.29 enough of a stretch while you're still this high? I weigh quite a bit right now. This, in many ways, sucks. But having so much to lose gives me one substantive benefit: moving myself around burns a heck of a lot more calories than it would for a person of reasonable size. Because I still weigh so much, dropping a given pound is comparatively easier than it will be down the road.

So I tried pushing it up a bit more to the 15th, the ides of October. (Did you know the ides only take place on the 15th during October, March, May and July? In all other months they're on the 13th. In other news, I am a gigantic nerd.) Fitday says this means losing 2.83 pounds/week. This is a slight bit more than my last mini goal (which started at 2.80 pounds/week) but is slower than the actual pace I've had thus far of 3.32 pounds/week.

My new goal is to lose 17 pounds by October 15th.

It's going to be tough. That's a high number. I'll need to push workouts and keep mistakes few and far between. But it's also eminently doable. If I want to, there's not a doubt in my mind that I can make it.

The comments you guys left yesterday were just incredibly insightful. Several of you brought up that "easy" isn't quite the right word, and thinking about it more I realized that's true. The pain of recovery and long term restrictions are not to be underestimated. I started drafting a bit more of a response to all the good points you guys brought up last night, but that got preempted by my WOOHOO 10% post. So look for that in the near future.

In the mean time, I'm still smiling. I've lost 10% of my bodyweight. I've improved how I look, lowered my risk of disease, and quite a few other things. I'm happy I stuck through, and I'm proud of myself for doing so. I hope the rest of you guys get to have just as fabulous a day as I'm having.

On weight loss surgery

2009-09-02T13:08:00.012-04:00

Weight: 250.6
BMI: 43.01

-1 pound day to day, -27.4 all in all. I'm getting really close to the 10% mark.

Anyway, I read a lot of blogs. I love blogs. I comment on many of the blogs I read (I love both giving and receiving comments). There are a few I read pretty much daily but rarely comment on. One of those is The Blubber Blog. Lynn, its author, just had weight loss surgery. Like just had it, as in a few days ago.

Lynn's a great writer, and I like her blog, but I have problems commenting on it because, well . . . I'm looking for a good way to say this. I think it's primarily that weight loss surgery makes me uneasy. It's not that I think it's wrong per se. I mean, we're all fighting the same obesity demon. Who am I to say that one way is less valid or less right than any other? Losing weight the old fashioned way is hard and I shouldn't cast stones at someone for choosing not to walk that road. Plus getting cut up isn't exactly easy. I mean, yes it is in that you're knocked out and lie there while surgeons do the actual cutting, but it obviously takes a whole bunch of courage to go under the knife.

Logically, all that, and yet. Maybe the best way I can put it is that while I don't think weight loss surgery is cheating, I feel like it is. I can justify in my head a billion ways in which it's not a wrong thing to do, but some part of me just can't get on board.

This road is hard. A few months from now, hell, maybe a few days from now, I might go off course. She'll have have a whole heck of a lot harder time doing so: weight loss surgery is pretty damn close to a permanent commitment device. It's easy for me to fall off the horse, she pretty much can't.

As I just wrote that last paragraph, I thought about a Freakonomics column from a few years ago that discusses weight loss and commitment devices, including bariatric surgery. (Also, while I'm discussing weight loss commitment devices, I can't not link to this op-ed about using money as a commitment device for weight loss.) I'm going to go ahead and block quote part of the Freakonomics column:

There are at least two ways to think about the rise in bariatric surgery. On the one hand, isn’t it terrific that technology has once again solved a perplexing human problem? Now people can eat all they want for years and years and then, at the hands of a talented surgeon, suddenly bid farewell to all their fat. There are risks and expenses of course, but still, isn’t this what progress is all about?
On the other hand, why is such a drastic measure called for? It’s one thing to spend billions of dollars on a disease for which the cause and cure are a mystery. But that’s not the case here. Even those who argue that obesity has a strong genetic component must acknowledge, as Bessler does, that “the amount of obesity has skyrocketed in the past 30 years, but our genetic makeup certainly hasn’t changed in that time.”
So the cause is, essentially, that people eat too much; and the cure is, essentially, to eat less. But bariatric surgery seems to fit in nicely with the tenor of our times. Consider, for instance, the game shows we watch. The old model was “Jeopardy!,” which required a player to beat her opponents to the buzzer and then pluck just the right sliver of trivial knowledge from her vast cerebral storage network. The current model is “Deal or No Deal,” which requires no talent whatsoever beyond the ability to randomly pick a number on a briefcase.

I think that passage from Dubner and Levitt maybe captures the ambivalence of my feelings. To someone who loses via surgery, I'm happy you won, just like it's great when people do well on Deal or No Deal. It's fabulous to get something (be it money or a new body) that will let you live your life as you'd like to. It's nice when good things happen to people, and I'm happy for them.

But to all the people doing it the hard way, I'm not just happy for you like you're happy for someone when something nice happens. I'm proud of you. I admire you. I respect you. You (and I) walk a long hard road doing it the old fashioned way. You're not likely to win as much money on Jeopardy as you would in an episode of Deal or No Deal, but my hat's off to you because every dollar and every pound was so hard fought.

There's nothing wrong with taking the easy way out, but there's something very right about doing it with nothing but your own willpower to keep you going.

How do you guys feel about weight loss surgery? Am I just entirely off base, or do you agree with me that there's something that feels off about the idea that losing weight via surgery is just as admirable as losing it on your own? Would you ever have surgery, and why or why not?

Thank you for all your wonderful comments on the photos yesterday. All the compliments definitely put a spring in my step. (And for those of you who asked, I did in fact get a new phone, upgrading from an original iPhone to a new iPhone 3G S.)

Tuesday Weigh In (with Bonus Pictures!)

2009-09-01T09:39:00.017-04:00

Well, today is my official Tuesday "side of the blog" weigh in. It's also the first day of the GAG challenge and their official weigh in day. (It's pretty damn convenient that they sync up.) And the results are:

Weight: 251.6
BMI: 43.18

I'm required by GAG rules to post a scale picture. I took one (I swear!) but forgot to email it to myself this morning so I could post from work. So, I can't post it now, but I will be posting it as an addendum later in the day.

I did, however, remember to email myself both my before photos, taken on July14th when I weighed 270.5 (I don't have any at 278), and ones I took this morning at 251.6. I'm hoping you guys will be able to tell which ones are before and which ones are after on your own! Well, here goes:

I (stupidly) turned a bit in the profile photo, so the difference is barely noticeable in that one, but I think you can really see the difference around my tummy in the first one. A substantive difference from "beach ball" to "slightly deflated beach ball" if you ask me! My butt/fat right above where a butt ought to be also looks way better in the profile picture, now that I'm really looking at it.

And those are my progress pictures. Now I really should try to crank the rest of this post out before I change my mind and have a "what was I thinking posting photos?!?!" moment. So, I'll just say one more short thing:

Today is Tuesday, September 1st. I'm creating a super short term challenge for myself to get to 250.2 (exactly 10% of my starting weight) or below by this coming Saturday when my brother visits. It's only 1.4 pounds and incredible doable. If I step up the workouts and eat cleanly, I should hit it. Let's start the challenge off right, turn up the pressure, and be done with that first 10% before I see my brother.

Edited to add the promised scale pic:

I need to be less scared

2009-08-31T10:22:00.004-04:00

Before I get into regular posting, I just wanted to say that work stuff has calmed down quite a bit and thank you guys for your supportive words. The weight loss blogosphere really is filled with such wonderful people, and I greatly appreciated your thoughts and sympathy last week.

Anyway, let's get down to business:

Weight: 252.6

Yesterday I weighed in at 251.7, so in many ways 252.6 isn't the best number that ever was numbered. But I don't mind.

I'm still sort of in shock at how low the numbers are. I don't really think of myself as weighing in the 250s. And the craziest part is that in the not too distant future, I'm going to be in the 240s. I'm still sort of amazed that I am doing this and that this is going.

I've noticed myself slacking a bit of late, though. I think part of it, honestly, is the starting tomorrow GAG challenge. While I obviously don't want to ruin my streak by having a week to week gain or holding steady, I don't want my lowest ever weigh in to be tomorrow per se.

I actually read a paper about this one time: one of the effects of weight loss competitions (things like office competitions and the Biggest Loser, etc) is that people tend to gain weight right before the competition starts. They do so both because they're about to experience a period of relative deprivation, but also because it increases their competitive advantage. While I'm not doing that, I'm definitely not planning to avoid sodium like I generally do the night before my weekly weigh in.

I'm a little on pins and needles about one part of the GAG competition though: the need to post a picture. While I know I said last week that I was fine with it, I've started to become really self conscious about the idea. After all, I did take some before pictures early on for this blog, only to decide to not post them in my abject horror about just how wretched I looked. I do know I look better than I used to. I wore particularly tight clothes in the before picture with the idea that I could use them again in future sets and see the progression from "ridiculously tight" to "about right" to "way too loose."

Logically, I don't know why I'm so afraid of posting a few progress pictures. It's not like you guys don't know I'm fat. It's not like you're going to say, "Oh, her tummy's too big, I don't want to read her blog any more." And yet . . .

I really need to stop being so afraid. I need to suck it up, accept that I need to post a picture for the GAG challenge, and just go ahead and do it tomorrow. Yes, my body is still a horrific mess, but that's okay. It's not about what I look like now, it's where I'm going.

Also, I seem to have inadvertently crossed the 25 pounds gone mark since I last wrote, so there's a small (and happy) bit of victory.

Stressed

2009-08-27T13:39:00.001-04:00

Weight: 254.5

I'm stressed. Stressed, stressed, stressed. It's all job stuff. It's my fault, too.

My stomache is tied up in knots. I feel all kinds of terrible.

I ate a bit more than I should've yesterday (okay, and the day before), but I'm not wildly off track for food all things considered.

Right now it doesn't matter though. I don't care about my diet at the moment relative to work fears.

I'll write a real post when I can. Right now, this is more of a "posting that I won't be posting today." Hopefully I'll be able to post tomorrow night when this is all cleared up, but I can't make any promises.

For now I just feel ill from stress. If I had the office to myself I would be sobbing right now. I can't, I don't want my officemate to know, plus sobbing at work would just be all kinds of strange.

Okay. And that's the post for today. Wish me luck, wish me calm, wish me uneventfulness. Hopefully things will all turn out okay.

A Challenge and a Visit

2009-08-26T09:15:00.003-04:00

Weight: 254.1
BMI: 43.61

I'm up .4 day to day but not going to stress it. I barely got any sleep and I ate macaroni and cheese last night (not ideal, but okay in terms of calories range).

I was having problems sleeping last night, so I ended up trolling blog land and stumbling upon the Give a Gift to Yourself 2009 challenge. After reading through the rules and debating it a bit, I decided to sign up and maybe get involved. I've been looking for a more organized thing to participate in in blogworld besides just commenting/following etc. I tried joining Operation Fat Blaster, but I've sort of been having problems finding my way around the site, figuring out how to get involved, etc. The 16 week GAG challenge (yes, that's how they're abbreviating it) seems like it might be a nice fit. An extra bit of motivation, extra bit of community, something slightly new to do. I hesitated over the fact that we need to post a picture, but since I've been thinking that I probably ought to post a progress when I hit 250 anyway, I figured I'd get over it and just agree. I'd encourage you all to go check it out if you're into challenges. You must register before September 1st, so if you want to get in, now's your shot.

Yesterday my brother told me he's coming down to DC for a friend's bachelor party on Labor Day weekend. He asked if he could stay with me (I said of course) and is going to come down early for it so we can hang out a bit. I haven't seen him since the end of June.

My brother is amazing. He's the only one in my family who's not overweight. (My mom's heavier than me, and my Dad's on the chubby side.) He's my inspiration in so many ways. He's such a hard worker and such a nice, wonderful guy. I always wish I was more like him.

I saw my parents about a week and a half into my diet, but I haven't seen any members of my family since then. I doubt the changes thus far will be noticeable to a casual observer like my brother (24 pounds might seem like a lot, but it's only 8.6% of my body weight). If he did notice, I doubt he'd comment. It's just not something he'd say. Still, it seems like a big deal. I'm excited/happy/worried. I guess we'll see what happens.

Tuesday Weigh In

2009-08-25T09:49:00.006-04:00

I weigh in every day, but today's the big, official, "side of the blog" Tuesday weigh in day. The results? Not too shabby.

Weight: 253.7
BMI: 43.54

Now, when you look at the fact that I was at 253.9 two days ago, it's not that impressive. However, if you take into account that last week's official weigh in was 258.2, well, this is totally a happy dance number. 4.5 pounds is really quite ridiculously awesome.

I did pick up a new scale yesterday. It's white, it's by Thinner, and I can't find it on amazon or I'd link it to you. I primarily picked it up because it was the only non Weight Watchers scale that went to .1 pounds (just like my old scale does/did) and it didn't have crazy body fat/body water/bone density/things I don't need. It does vary depending on my exact position when I hop on, but it's still reasonably consistent. I greatly prefer the different readings to the faked same readings of the WW scale. Researching scales on Amazon, I found that there are a few other people who agree with my "programmed to give you the same reading" conspiracy theory. This way, when I get different readings, I can be smart about which one shows up the most.

It's weird though. As much as I'm in to nit picking the number, I also get that it doesn't really matter all that much. Unless I go ahead and get one of the big health o meter doctor scales, I'm not going to get a truly accurate reading. And even though this battle day to day and week to week is fought in pounds and fractions thereof, in the big picture that's not what it's about. I'm in the lower half of the 250s right now: where, exactly, I am doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm not in the upper part of the 270s anymore. The big numbers I'm looking at: where I started and where I'm going, they're so different that a few pounds of scale error isn't really a big deal. Even if day to day scale errors matter, I have to remember that in the long run they don't, and that I just need to keep the trend moving down.

Speaking of trends, it's about time to show you my totally badass moving average progress. Take a look:

And remember when I lost 4.5 pounds this week? JOY.

And before I close out the post, thank you to Monica, Kat and Orange and Black Kittehs for hooking me up with even more lovely blog awards. I think you guys are lovely too!

I think I need a new scale

2009-08-24T10:27:00.003-04:00

This is the part of the post where I normally give the day's weigh in. Today, that's just not going to happen.

So I have this scale which I purchased off of Amazon shortly after moving to DC in January. I've typically liked it because it's very consistent. If I weigh myself then hop off then weigh myself again, it'll give me back the same number.

This morning, I weighed myself and came in at 253.8. I hopped on and off a few times, and still got the 253.8. I went to the bathroom, and then decided to weigh myself again, hoping to have, er, discarded a few ounces into the toilet. I weighed in again: 255.8.

This made no sense. One doesn't gain 2 pounds in a few minutes, and certainly not by going to the bathroom. I stepped off, grabbed a relatively heavy container of laundry detergent, and stepped back on. (My scale is right by my washer/dryer and cleaning supplies.) 255.8.

At this point, I'm beginning to suspect that the scale itself isn't accurate, it just repeats the same weight as it gets the first time so you'll think it's accurate.

Holding two containers of laundry detergent, I was finally able to get the scale to move up to 261. When I put them both back and stepped on again: a repeatable 254.8.

Made breakfast/lunch and packed them in my bag to go to work. Went back to weigh: 253.8. Consistent hopping on and off a few times.

Went to the bathroom, weighed myself again: 255.8. I stepped on several times, and kept getting 255.8.

At this point, I was getting close to running late, so I got dressed, stopped messing with the scale, and went to work. I'm planning a post work trip to Bed Bath & Beyond to get a new scale. Does anyone have any scale recommendations?

I half considered getting one of these, which I think Monica has, but I think I'd be too embarrassed to have one around when friends and family members come over. I'm still at the point where I'm yet to acknowledge to anyone offline that I'm on a diet. While I accept that the cat will be out of the bag eventually, I'd like it to happen via people visually noticing, rather than seeing a "she means business" scale in my apartment.

Also: thank you to Learning to Be Less for giving me another lovely blog award!

Goodbye, Plateau

2009-08-22T16:48:00.006-04:00

I had an insanely busy Friday and didn't get around to writing. Thank you very much to Mae, Amy and F. McButter for giving me lovely blog awards!

Friday, I finally got back into losing territory with the following weigh in:

Weight: 256.5
BMI: 44.02

I was pretty happy with that number. I also started having, you know, that thing with the blood, which I think is probably the cause of the past week's non-progress. It also explains this morning's ridiculously amazing weigh in:

Weight: 253.9
BMI: 43.58.

That's 2.6 pounds in a single day! 2.6! In one day! One of the statistics I keep in my spreadsheet is the day to day percentage loss relative to my weight the day before. Using that, I lost 1.01% of my weight in a single day. Of course it's not actual fat I'm losing, but still, such a pretty new scale number.

A few fun statistics:

I'm 47 days into my diet and I've now lost 24.1 pounds and 8.67% of my starting body weight. In all, I've kicked 4.14 points of BMI to the curb. I've lost an average of 3.59 pounds/week (a number still pretty heavily inflated by the 7.5 pounds I lost in week 1). To hit my mini goal of 250 by 9/15, I need to lose 3.9 pounds in 24 days, or an average of 1.13 pounds/week.

The numbers are all nice, but what I love most right now is the feeling of relief.

Because of the plateau I'd been having an incredibly frustrating week. After hitting 256.7, I went up and down for a whole seven days before I beat that number on Friday. As I've mentioned before, the upper half of the 250s is where I got stuck last time I tried to lose weight. I was really, really scared that I was going to get stuck again. Friday's number was only 256.5, and while it was nice to see a new low, I knew it wasn't by much and I was worried that I'd be back up today. To see 253.9 staring up at me today felt, well, like a weight being lifted off me.

I'd been sticking to my diet this past week, but I was scared. I was petrified my diet had somehow failed and that I'd just stop losing weight, even though I was still eating right. I didn't want to give up, but I also was incredibly worried that I might end up doing so. I didn't trust myself this week, I didn't feel as committed, as sure. It was not a place I wanted to be.

Today, I don't feel like that anymore. I know why I wasn't seeing the results this week. I know not to freak out next time it happens.

And I'm lower than I've been a long, long time. I'm going to get to 250, and I'm going to get there soon. Then I'll get to 233, and I won't be morbidly obese any more. And from there, I'm just going to keep going down down down. I've lost 24.1 pounds already: I can and will lose the rest.

Some Very Lovely Blogs (now with bonus squirrel)

2009-08-20T13:31:00.008-04:00

So as I mentioned yesterday, Jo from 282.5 gave me the following:

The rules of the award are that you're supposed to acknowledge the giver and give it to 15 other blogs. Now, I'm not so big on "rules" per se, so to each recipient I give two options. You may take the above award, with it's rules and limitations, or you may take this:

The "One Lovely Blog Award Plus Squirrel." This version of the award need not be acknowledged, need not be passed on, but does acknowledge just how totally awesome you are. You may pass it on, but if you do so, you must pass it on to some number of blogs other than 15. You can do 12, 17, 2, or whatever you damn well please.

As a recipient of the original flavor of One Lovely Blog Award, here's my list. It's in no particular order, but includes a bit of commentary about why I like each of these blogs so very much. Maybe you'll even find a few to add to your list.

1. Monica at Confessions of a + Sized Girl: Part of what makes this blog so great is that Monica just seems so incredibly nice. She's such a sweetheart both in the comments she writes here and on other blogs. Monica has this very conversational style of writing which just draws me in: it feels like you're going through everything with her. Sometimes the posts are happy, sometimes they're funny, sometimes they're sad, and sometimes they make you think: I like that when I go over to Confessions I almost never know what's in store, but I'm always glad I read it.

2. Jo at 282.5: What, am I not supposed to give this back to the person who gave it to me? Seriously though, Jo is amazing. She's been through so much, and she's such an inspiration. Her posts tend to the long, thoughtful, and intensely interesting. Jo's blog is the first weight loss blog that I really, really, really, really liked and was one of my inspirations for starting up. I wish I could write half as well as her. She's so smart, so strong, and her blog is just one of the best ones out there.

3. Learning to be Less: When I want to think, I go to 282.5, and when I want to smile I go to Learning to be Less. Learning's over a year into her weight loss journey, and she's kicked ridiculous amounts of ass thus far. She has great happy smiley posts and just an incredible attitude. Right now she's pretty busy with work so there haven't been daily posts, so here are few omg I need to smile posts from the archives.

4. Diane from Fit to the Finish: Diane lost 150 pounds and has kept it off for 12 years. TWELVE. Just the facts are insane and inspiring. But the best part of Diane's blog isn't the overarching story, it's the posts. She writes these wonderful, always relateable, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes touching posts. I'd link you examples, but I don't need to. Just go: I bet whatever is up now you can relate to. Now check the next post. You can relate to that one too, can't you? See? My point exactly.

5. Mae Flowers at A Journey to Thin: I adore Mae's blog. She chronicles small victories and small defeats, and there's something about the way she writes it where it feels like you're right there with her. When her road's bumpy, I feel like I've been there too, when things are going well, her posts make me smile and inspire me to keep going. Added bonus: sometimes there are pretty pictures.

6. HD at Losing Weight to Gain a Healthy Heart: HD has always struck me as among the smartest bloggers out there, and she writes a wonderful blog primarily focused on the day to day. She inspires me with her super early work outs and her ability to manage what seems like an incredibly hectic life. (Shhhh, don't tell, but one of my favorite parts is cribbing meal ideas from her daily listing. I've stolen like four of her salads and each has been delicious.)

7. Katie J at Katie J Is on Her Way: One of the things I love most about Katie J's blog is how accountable she is with her bodybugg screenies. I try to come close with daily weigh ins, but it's not as good. She inspires me by battling clutter, losing weight ( she recently hit the 50 pound mark!), and taking wonderful care of her mother. (Seriously, I've started calling my mom more since I've been regularly reading Katie J's blog.) She has wonderful, frequently changing, backgrounds. For some bonus inspiration, scroll down to the very bottom of the blog: she's got a great list of reasons for why this battle is worth fighting.

8. Jenn at Watch My Butt Shrink: Jenn's blog is just a wonderful eclectic mix. She'll talk about her kids, she'll talk about cooking, she'll weigh in on news, and so on. I like that when I go I don't know quite what I'm going to get, but it always ends up being interesting. She's smart as a whip (she's going to be on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire) and makes great use of photos. If Jenn's not on your blog roll, she should be. Bonus: SUPER adorable kids.

9. Ebony Renee at Project Hot Mommy: I love Ebony's blog because of how well she discusses the trade offs of the weight loss journey, and for how realistic she is about what she is and isn't willing to give up. A lot of her blog posts touch deeply on what I debate internally along the way. She also has a too cute for words son. Seriously, if Ebony's son and Jenn's kids ever had a playdate, the combined cuteness would be blinding.

10. Lyricgirl at Fat Girl vs. Skinny Girl: Lyricgirl just started out not too long ago, but she's already got a great blog. She's one of my exercise inspirations. She does all these classes and is just incredibly brave and so very strong. If you're ever wondering "should I go for that workout or just stay home?" just stop by her site and be inspired.

11. Kimberly at The Woman Inside Me: Kimberly has lost over 130 pounds already. She's losing at an astounding and inspiring rate. Want inspiration? Check out her photos. It gets me every time. Her blog is a nice mix of statistics posts and thoughtful posts. She doesn't update every day, but when she does it's always worth stopping by.

12. Jack at Jack Sh*t, Gettin' Fit: Jack is on almost everyone's list. There's a good reason for that: his blog is amazing. Most days of the week, he'll crack you up. The other few, he'll make you think. (Occasionally, he'll even make you laugh while you're thinking.) Jack's blog is a great mixture of depth and hilarity. If for some reason you haven't found your way there yet, go now!

13. F. McButter Pants at To the Best of My Ability: I love this blog. Dana (am I allowed to call you Dana? Your posts are signed F. McButter but your blog url has Dana in it) has been through a lot. Seriously, her posts are practically dripping with wisdom. She struggles, but inspires as she does so. Her style is long thoughtful posts, and I recommend adding her to your reading list if she's not already on it.

14. Fat[Free]Me at Fat[Free]Me : She already got six of these, but I'm going to have to give her another. She runs! She bikes! She belly dances! She's lost 54 pounds since March. She's seriously such an inspiration. If you haven't seen her blog already, go check it out.

15. And in the spot of favorite blogger who I'm pretty certain has never read my blog, Fat Daddy at Fat Daddy Rants: In some ways, Fat Daddy is sort of the inverse of Jack Sh*t. Most days, he'll make you think, some days he'll crack you up. And on the days he makes you laugh, chances are pretty good he made you think too. Check out his Not So Private Hell series, if you haven't already.

There are other blogs I could think of that belong on here as well, but I wanted to stick with the limit of 15.

Oh, and if anyone's curious about today's weigh in, it was a disappointing 257.6. Between the daily ups and downs over the past week, my moving average has been ridiculously plateaued. Just take a look at the badness:

Not pretty. It could be worse, but mostly it's bad.

At least I'm still within striking distance of a new low tomorrow.

Edited to add: Wow this post ended up being long. Next time you inspire me, I'll try to be more succinct in my praise.

Whole Foods

2009-08-19T13:07:00.006-04:00

Weight: 257.1
BMI: 44.13

It's nice to see the scale going back down. I'm now only .4 pounds above my low. I'm hoping pretty soon I'll be able to stop treading water and start making progress.

Yesterday Jo at 282.5 gave me the Lovely Blog Award. Thanks Jo! I promise to soon write a list of all the wonderful blogs I read so I can tell you guys how very lovely you all are too.

So, I don't know how much you guys are following the health care debate, but right now, there's been a bit of a kerfuffle over an op-ed that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey wrote in the Wall Street Journal. (Side note: about 90% of the work I'm doing these days is related to health policy, so I know more than one would ever want to about the debate. I've even read the 1018 page House bill, and no, Virginia, there aren't any death panels.)

The op-ed contains 8 policy suggestions and some commentary advising people to eat healthfully. Some of the suggestions are ones where reasonable people can disagree, like legalizing interstate purchase of insurance. Personally, I think it's a great idea because it would mean people can buy cheaper policies. Let's just look at an individual who works in Philadelphia and lives in the surrounding region. If they live in Pennsylvania, an average policy on the individual market would cost $167 a month. If they live across the border in New Jersey, it would cost them $288 a month. (Source, on page 18.) That's over $100 a month more! To me, this is just silly. I don't think it should be illegal to buy out of state health insurance any more than it should be illegal to buy out of state apples.

But, okay, I understand that some people think that it's really important to cartelize insurance so that community rating laws and other mandates are more effective, and while I think they're wrong and that people should get to pick if they'd rather have more regulations and higher prices or lower prices and fewer regulations, I understand their point. It's the sort of issue where reasonable people can have reasonable disagreements.

Other suggestions in the op-ed are honestly no brainers, though. Equalizing tax laws so individuals as well as businesses can buy insurance tax free: I know no one who opposes that. And I know a lot, a lot of health policy wonks from across the political spectrum. Making it easier for people to donate money to help people who don't have insurance? Seriously, who could oppose that? Do you oppose puppies and babies as well?

But some people on the left are mad because, you know, it's not an exact copy of what the Democrats want, it's something else. (For the record, I did vote for Obama but consider myself an independent. I'm left on some issues and right on others.) So they're starting a boycott and throwing hissy fits on blogs and I just can't for the life of me understand it. Radley Balko wrote a wonderful post detailing how well Whole Foods treats its workers, the environment, etc, and said that, because of the dust up, he was going to shop more at Whole Foods.

Which, I suppose, brings us to the point of this whole post. Yesterday, I went to Whole Foods. I bought a demi baguette and ate it for dinner. It was caloric and amazing. I also got some of the best tomatoes I've had in a while. Needless to say, last night I ate deliciously. It was a nice break from my regularly scheduled meals. It was great to eat something special while still staying within my calorie range. And I got a side of "Ha! take that militant people who are militant about anything!" to go with it. And that is calorie free and oh so satisfying.

Apologies for today's random policy rantings. I promise a return to your regular food and diet blogging tomorrow.

Tuesday Weigh In

2009-08-18T09:53:00.002-04:00

Weight: 258.2
BMI: 44.32

Well, it is what it is.

The good: I'm down 1.1 pounds from last week. I'm down 1.2 pounds day to day.

The bad: I'm up 1.5 pounds from a few days ago. I'm also up back over my 20lb mark. And 1.1 pounds is the lowest weekly loss I've had yet. It's also not acceptable in terms of pace for any of my goals.

Still, a loss is a loss is a loss is a victory. Right?

I'm sort of scared to be in this general neighborhood on the scale. A little over a year ago, I attempted to lose weight using Spark People. I stalled in the upper 250s (257.8 was my old low, with 275 as the starting weight) and eventually gave up. I'm not pleased with how much I ate on Saturday and Sunday, and how little working out I've been doing of late. (Only 30 minutes of cardio last night, when I'd been planning 45 + weights.) I'm very, very worried I'm going to go off track and screw this up.

I need to be committed. I need to have an iron will. I need to get through these next weeks and get out of this upper 250s death zone. I don't want this to be for naught. Now, more than ever, I need to stay the course. I can do this.

Hemming Pants

2009-08-17T13:41:00.005-04:00

Weight: 259.4

Friday was reasonable. Saturday I skirted in just under my calorie limit but didn't accomplish anything like what I'd been meaning to. Sunday was a 1,964 calorie no-workout disaster. Today, though, I want to focus on the positive.

The weekend started well. I had a day off on Friday. I'd planned it a while back, just as sort of an "I'm going to need a break at some point" vacation day. I got my hair cut and, since I'd passed the 20 pound mark, decided to get a manicure and pedicure as well. I only worked out for 30 minutes (generally I do 40 or 45) but figured it was okay since I'd walked around the city so much.

Since my suits have been a little tent-like of late, I decided to head to Macy's and pick up a new smaller pair of black pants that I could wear with my existing jackets. I found out that they had the pants of my favorite suit on sale. I tried on and bought the 20s, happy that I easily fit into them. On a whim at the last minute, I picked up the 18s as well to shrink into.

Walking home from Macy's, I decided that I'd go to the tailor and get my new pants hemmed. Hemming pants has been this strange continual battle between my mother and I for many years. In middle and high school, I liked having pants that were slightly too long. More than that, I'm sure, I liked the immediate gratification of wearing new pants without having to send them away to the tailor for a few days. This drove my mother insane. She would push and push and push me to get my pants hemmed, which in turn drove me insane. Soon enough, it took on a life of it's own, to the point where I wouldn't get things hemmed because she wanted me to. Over the years, I might relent on an item or two, generally in exchange for something else I wanted. It was absolutely ridiculous, but is what it is.

In DC, I hadn't been getting my pants hemmed. Since I'm not incredibly short, it's really just on the border whether I need them hemmed or not, and generally it'll take a little while. Sure, eventually the hem will fall apart or get frayed (and it has on many of my work pants: I just stop wearing those ones) but they last a decent bit.

On Friday, though, I decided I was going to be a grown-up, get over this small random resentment, and go get my new pants hemmed. I went to the tailor, got into the tiny dressing room and put on the size 20s, and let her mark them up.

"Okay try on next pair," she said. Her accent was pretty heavy, and we'd been having some trouble communicating.

"They're just the same as these, can't you just make them the same length." In New York that was what they always did, so I was a bit surprised she'd even asked me to try on the second pair.

"No, is better."

"But it's the same pair of pants." Except for the fact that I'm too fat for the other pair . . .

"Is better. Try on next pair."

I went back into the dressing room, uncertain of what to do. Just put on the pants I'd worn and say, sorry, I'm in a rush, and get the 18s hemmed when they were closer to fitting? But then I'd have to come back again. After standing, pantsless, for a few minutes in the small changing room I figured I might as well try on the 18s. I was wearing a big and long enough shirt that if I could just get them up she'd be able to hem them, even if I couldn't button them. There was no harm in trying, anyway.

So I did.

And they fit. They fit! They zippered and buttoned and sure were probably a little tighter than I'd wear to work buy they fit. I was ecstatic.

Friday night went well. My Saturday morning free session with my trainer went very well. He's fabulous and I promise to write more about him at some point. Afterward, though, I felt so incredibly exhausted that I didn't do anything else that I'd been meaning too, and ate at the very top of my Spark range. (And generally speaking I don't use the spark range and stick to a hard limit of 1300 with most days under 12.) Sunday was bad bad bad and I didn't work out and ate almost 2000 calories.

But today's a new week, and a new day. I'm going to get back on track. I've got a size 18 pair of pants all hemmed and ready for me to wear them: I don't want to make them wait too long. I'm betting the weight is mostly bloat and salt from Sunday. Hopefully my official tomorrow will be better. We shall see.

I'm going to stick with the hard (existing) goal for my graphs and spreadsheet, but keep pushing myself to see if I can do better. After all, each day I do well makes the next day easier. I can do this.

Should I push up my deadline?

2009-08-14T12:53:00.004-04:00

Weight: 256.7
BMI: 44.06

As I've talked about a few times in the past, my first mini-goal is to get to 250lbs by September 15th. The weight is meaningful (it'll mean I've lost 10% of my bodyweight, plus it's a big round number), but the date is not. I picked it, essentially, by playing around in calculators. September 1st seemed too tough and October 1st would be too easy: so the 15th it was. When I started, the goal required a sustained loss of 2.8 pounds a week: ambitious, but not impossible. As of now, it would require a sustained loss of 1.46 pounds a week: cake, at the rate I've been going.

So, I've been playing with the idea of moving the date up a bit to September first. Including today and the 1st, that would give me 19 days to hit goal, meaning I'd need to lose 2.5 pounds a week to hit it. I think that's a high enough number that it'll be challenging, but low enough that I should be able to make it if I work hard enough.

Do you guys think moving up a goal date is a good idea (to keep things challenging) or a bad idea ( since I think you lose something if you're trying to hit a moving target)? What would you do?

Just to give a visual, the below chart represents the weekly weight loss I'd need to sustain* on any given day to hit my current mini goal (250 by 9/15), my long term goal (175 by 8/14/2010 aka my brother's wedding) and my stretch goal (145 by the wedding). My short term goal has gone from being more challenging than my stretch goal to easier than my regular long term goal.

Personally, I'm leaning for it being time for an update.

*I appreciate that the chart might be a little weird to people who don't like mathy things. Essentially, it's a judge of pace: how much do I need to be losing each week to hit my goals. Consistently beating pace means I can go slower later and still make it. Going behind pace means I'll need to lose more quickly later. A fuller explanation of the philosophy behind the graph (and why I like it so very much) is available here.

A Grocery Store Disaster

2009-08-13T00:21:00.010-04:00

To everyone who said I'd hit that 20 pound mark in no time: you were right.

Weight: 257.7
BMI: 44.23

That means I've lost over 20 pounds! YAY! I'm very very happy about it. It also means I've now lost over 7% of my starting body weight (7.30% if you're counting) and 3.48 points of BMI. In order to hit my first mini goal of 250 by 9/15, I now need to lose only 1.63 pounds/week. If things keep going as they have, I should not only meet my goal date, but beat it by a week or two.

Anyway, yesterday at work was a busy day. I left around 7pm, changed quickly, and headed to the gym. I did 50 minutes on the elliptical (550 calories) and even enjoyed some of it! Needless to say, I'm glad that the badness and misery of my Saturday/Sunday workouts wasn't repeated.

There was a dire need to replenish my healthy food supplies, so I hit up the grocery store post gym. I do this relatively often, just grabbing produce (which is right by the door) and going straight to the checkout before I head home. Today, though, I needed to buy lunch meat for work sandwiches, which brought me in to the belly of the beast.

It started with a 100 calorie hostess cupcake display. I'd had the last of my 60 calorie sugar free Jell-o pudding snacks two nights ago, so I needed to get some small new desert, right? Cupcakes it was. Oh, but if I have these you know I'm going to need a glass of milk to go with them. I should go grab that. The milk was in sight of the eggs. I'd been meaning to try the egg substitutes one of these days to see how they tasted, so shouldn't I get a package of those too? Added to the cart. I walked down the aisle . . . Cottage cheese! I used to love cottage cheese. Shouldn't I get one of those 4 packs of cottage cheese to see if I love it as much as I used to? And then Oh, yogurts, I'm running out of those. I might as well grab a few more. Then I hate hate hate that low fat cheddar I've got at home, oooh and this mozzarella has just the same number of calories. I couldn't NOT. And on and on it went.

The damage? $50 of groceries. Looking through the receipt, precisely $11.50 of that is stuff I'd been intending to pick up. Yeesh. While everything I bought still qualifies under the vague banner of healthy, it's much, much, much more than I needed.

While I do feel pretty guilty about my unplanned purchases, it's tricky because I also am really excited about them. I'm sad, but I'm also happy to get to try all this new stuff I bought. I don't generally rock frozen food, but I ended up on some blog (sorry I don't remember who you are! otherwise the link love would be yours) recently where they were raving about a few Smart Ones dishes, so I ended up buying four of those. I had their macaroni and cheese for dinner last night and it was oh so good. (I also had a salad with lettuce, tomato, apple, one cut up wedge of light laughing cow cheese and Italian dressing, which is a standard dinner salad of mine and is amazingly good too.) I'm excited to try the egg substitutes and see if I like them. I'm looking forward to the rest of the frozen dinners. I can't wait to see if cottage cheese is as good as I remember. And really, the anticipation for those hostess 100-calorie cupcakes is killing me.

I love food. It's bad. I'm making healthy choices right now because I'm dedicated to losing weight and it's something I really want to do, but good lord, in so many ways I'm still absolutely in love with food. I love buying it, I love trying it, I love making it, it's terrible. It's probably 60% of what got me into this situation in the first place.

This is no good.

I don't know. I think I'm always going to love food. I don't really think I'd want to not love food, which is probably just as well because I don't think I could stop even if I wanted to. And I think (or maybe I just hope) that it's okay to love food. I can love trying new foods and making new things, I just have to do it in moderation. I can love food, I just can't love it more than I love my life, my health, and my future.

I can love food, I just can't let my love of it negatively impact everything else.

That could work, right?

Gym Fears

2009-08-12T15:01:00.003-04:00

Weight: 258.8
BMI: 44.42

Well, I hit a new low today at .1 pounds less than Monday. So, right direction, wrong amount. I didn't work out yesterday or Monday, but I am planning on hitting up the gym today after work. I slept a fabulous amount last night, and it was well worth skipping the gym for.

I keep being on the edge of trying the classes at my gym, but I'm still a bit too afraid. There's a "Yoga Fundamentals" class on Tuesdays and Sundays which is explicitly designed for beginners, so I'm thinking that might be my best bet for getting started going to those. The cycling class description also explicitly mentions that they're appropriate for all levels, so I could try that. They also have cycling twice a day every day but Friday, so there's no "Oh I'll go Tuesday" and on Tuesday "Oh I'll go Sunday instead."

I'm getting really nervous about meeting my trainer on Saturday. Like, I know it's completely irrational (what, do I think he's going to mock me or call me fat or something?), but at the same time, I'm still terrified.

In both these cases, the thing I need to do is just plain be less scared. Unfortunately, for me, that's much easier said than done.

I really want to lose the last .8 to get myself over that 20 pound hump by the end of this week. I'm hoping that now that I'm back on a sleep schedule and will be going to the gym again that my weight loss will pick back up again. Only time will tell.

Tuesday Weigh In

2009-08-11T15:57:00.006-04:00

Weight: 259.3
BMI: 44.50

Well, today's the big official weigh in day, and the results are, well, mixed. The good news is that I'm down 3.3 pounds from last week, which is a great number. The bad news is that I'm up .4 pounds day to day, but that's all right.

Last night I didn't sleep one wink. I was up all night working. I finished things just in the nick of time, and that was good, but I'm exhausted. I'm glad I didn't gain a lot more: generally my weight goes up throughout the day, and I lose a lot over night. I generally have quite a bit of trouble losing weight if I don't get a good night's sleep. Considering that (and the fact that I didn't work out yesterday), I wasn't expecting to lose day to day, and I'm glad I only gained .4

Last night I did relatively well in terms of food, all things considered. After work I went to a Subway and grabbed a five dollar foot long: it's not something I generally eat, so it was sort of the "special" that I generally use to get myself through crunch periods. I got ham with lettuce and tomato on wheat, and put on Miracle Whip at home. I ate half immediately after I got it, then waited about 20 minutes and ate the rest. I thought it was a bit of foreshadowing that I'd be in for a binge, but the sandwich was in fact all I ended up eating last night. Not bad.

So, I'm proud of myself for showing that I can get through hard periods of work without using food as a crutch. I'm proud I lost 3.3 pounds this week. And I'm proud I got all my work done in time (and did a damn good job with it, in my opinion).

I should work out tonight since I took yesterday off, but, well, I'll be coming up on 34 hours without sleep by the time I get home. I may just want to pass out.

And since it's been a while since I've shared one, below's a graph of my weight loss progress so far. Each mark represents a daily weigh in. The red line represents the 5-day moving average of my weight, the blue line the actual day to day weight. (Note that in San Diego, when I was unable to weigh myself, I just held my weight constant at my starting weight for the trip.)

Maybe this is just the exhaustion speaking, but I feel like I really am making progress.

Trade Offs

2009-08-10T11:39:00.002-04:00

Weight: 258.9
BMI: 44.44

-.9 pounds day to day. 19.1 pounds total. I'm getting very close to the 20 pound mark. I don't think I've ever lost 20 pounds, so that would be a big milestone. I'm also now only 8.9 pounds away from my first goal. I'm 35 days in and have 36 days left. As of tomorrow, I'll be more than halfway in in terms of time. Even if my heart's not in it at this very moment, I'm making a ton of progress.

I think part of the cloud hanging over me is that I have a crunch time at work. I've just got a ton a ton of stuff that needs to be done soon, a lot of it by tomorrow. (Which probably means I shouldn't be blogging instead of working, but shhhhh.) And this is making me want food more.

I've always used food as a crutch to get me through the hardest parts at work and school. A pizza has always been an excellent companion for an all nighter. Even in my unhealthy days, I'd always get something special, something even unhealthier than I'd normally eat, just to get me through, like a bag of Cheetos, or soda with calories. And I'd always, always get a Starbucks venti white mocha. (At 580 calories and over $5, even I would normally only have that a treat.) But it was all okay, because it was crunch time: the time when work was more important than everything, and any standards of decency could be sacrificed on the altar of getting things done.

Well, it's crunch time. I'll see what I can do on my own, but I think I'm probably going to indulge a bit more than usual. Not, order a large pizza indulge, but something.

While I've been writing this, I keep alt tabbing to look at possible things I could consume that would be "worth it." Everything I look at I keep nixing. Not worth the weigh in, I tell myself. And even though I weigh myself every day, Tuesday's the big "official" weigh in day, the one that goes on the side of the blog. And I don't want to fuck that up.

As of now, I'll see how I can do while staying healthy. I may end up going off course if it's what's going to get my work done. As much as I don't want to, if I can't work, it might be a trade off I'm willing to make tonight.

A Rough Few Days

2009-08-09T12:45:00.007-04:00

Weight: 259.8
BMI: 44.59

Yesterday:
Weight: 261.6
BMI: 44.90

Yesterday I went up (expected considering Friday), but today I got a very nice gift from the scale: 250s!

As the title might indicate, though, I've been having a tough time.

Dinner on Friday was bad, as predicted. I ended up not going to the gym after. I could try to blame exhaustion, but really I think it was more laziness. I avoided the pastries at breakfast on Saturday, but lunch was pretty bad. I went to the gym afterward, motivated to set things right with a long workout. Although I generally stick to the elliptical machine, on my way over I decided I'd try some new machines. First, I tried a stationary bike, figuring it would be a good idea to try considering I've been contemplating the cycling classes. I did it for 5 minutes, but everything felt wrong wrong wrong, so I hopped off. Then I decided to try one of the Precor crosstrainers. I'd loved the Precor ellipticals out in Chicago (in my last weight loss attempt slightly over a year ago) but this, just like the bike, felt all wrong. I stuck with it for 10 minutes, but then hopped off. Then I went over to the LifeFitness ellipticals, which I normally use, and got on one. It felt horrible too. Everything, just off. I stuck it out for 25 minutes, but it was just absolutely miserable. Generally, I get into the music and have at least a bit of fun while I'm working out. It's not like I'm having an excellent time yet, and there are definitely still streaks where I hate it, but generally for at least a bit of a workout I can zone out and enjoy the music. It didn't happen.

Today I hit up the gym again, doing 45 minutes on one of the LifeFitness ellipticals. While it didn't feel wrong per se, it was a terrible workout. Every minute was a battle. There were no songs I zoned out for, no adrenaline rushes, no fun parts, just badness. It was, needless to say, not a very fun workout.

I'm also having a really bad time in terms of temptation. While I haven't given in to anything yet, I am suffering through some insane cravings. I want a Five Guys little bacon burger with lettuce tomato and mayo and an order of fries. I want it badly. It feels like I've been thinking about it for so long. I had to walk by Five Guys yesterday on the way to the bank and it was all I could do not to turn in and order food. And I've been dreaming about French bread, and thinking about Chipotle burritos, and pizza, and these cheese enchiladas that this little Salvadorian restaurant by my apartment makes. Oh, and white wine and caramel frappachinos, and do you see the bad road this is going down?

My mind is in trouble. I'm not where I want to be. My head is just not in the game. And as the saying goes "90% of this game is half mental."

Still, I did all right today (and yesterday post conference) while not feeling things at all. Yes, for a portion of the day I do need to get up and get myself to the gym and work hard, but most of the rest of it is just having the fortitude to not screw up. And while I might not be truly motivated at this point, I'm not motivated enough in my desire to screw things up that I'm willing to break the status quo. Right now, weight loss is the status quo. As long as I keep on keeping on, hopefully things will be okay until I can jolt myself back to realizing just how badly I want this.

On Conferences and Free Food

2009-08-07T16:50:00.008-04:00

Weight: 260.6
BMI: 45.73

(-.2 day to day, -17.4 overall, yada yada yada.)

One of the things I've always loved about my job is that I get to go to lots of events and conferences. Up until a month ago, "free food" was a wonderful, wonderful perk. These days, it's a bit closer to a nightmare.

For all of today, I've been at a conference. We had a continental breakfast where I was just able to grab a piece of fruit, but lunch was a sit-down, 3 course ordeal. Throughout this journey, my willpower's held relatively well, but lunch was just a disaster. I ate the whole salad, over half the lunch (of salmon, risotto, and asparagus in some unknown cream sauce), even a few bites of desert. There were pastries and other goodies provided throughout the day, but I was able to resist those relatively easily.

I wouldn't be despondent if I could, you know, just have something very light for dinner and stay within my calorie limits. But I'm not going to: I have to go to a dinner for the conference. And it's going to be a seated meal of at least three courses, lasting 90 minutes. In other words, it's going to be bad.

I've become excellent at resisting food temptations when left to my own devices. I'm even pretty good at not eating food when it's optional. But at a served meal in a social work situation, you can't really choose to just not eat. You have to eat something, to not do so would be some combination of weird and rude. Which isn't to say you have to eat the whole plate, but you have to have a decent bit.

And that's where the problem starts. I always, always, always end up eating more than I mean to at these events. It's like 90 straight minutes of sitting with food! Good, free food. That others are eating. It's badness.

So I'm probably going to overeat tonight. My gym stays open till 11, so I may try to go after dinner.

Oh, and bonus: the conference is a half day tomorrow, too. So, truncated weekend and a fattening lunch on Saturday. Oh joy. Grrr.

To train or not to train

2009-08-06T11:31:00.005-04:00

Weight: 260.8
BMI: 44.76

The weigh in is happy (17.2 lbs lost! 6.19% of starting bodyweight and 2.95 points of BMI gone!) but not what I want to talk about today.

So, when I started losing weight, I started comparing gyms to figure out which would be a good fit for me. I sort of centered on Results because it was close and came up pretty often when I googled "Best Gym in DC." Still, at over $100 a month plus a $100 joining fee, I wasn't really certain if I was willing to spend that much.

Then, essentially the day after I'd settled on trying to go to Results for a one day free pass, I got a company wide email that we were considering a corporate membership there and that anyone who was interested should write back. I did, and I got 4 free passes to check it out.

I used them before San Diego. While I was there, the corporate membership deal got finalized. The Saturday after I got back, I went in and signed up for my reduced corporate $65 a month (and no joining fee!) membership. Since then I've used the gym every day but Monday, putting in a solid 40-60 minutes on the elliptical machine. I've been too scared to do any of the classes yet, but I'm on the edge of trying the spinning class or yoga fundamentals. They've got a Zumba class, too, which I kind of want to try solely on the basis of the praise I've read over at Learning to Be Less.

The point I'm trying to get to is that, as a new member, I'm entitled to a free personal training session. I've got mine scheduled for next Saturday (the 15th). I want to sort of dedicate the session to figuring out what I should be doing in terms of weight lifting, since I know it's important and I should be doing it, I just don't really know how. (There are also "floor trainers" whom I'm told I can ask how any of the machines work, but I'd rather just wait till the training session.)

The question is, should I invest in a personal trainer beyond the free session?

As of this point, I'm rather torn on if it's worth the money. (It would be $625 for 10 sessions, $1200 for 20. If I did get a trainer I think I'd set it up so I only met with him once a week, maybe twice.)

I recently opened up a Roth IRA for the first time. I put $3000 in, the minimum over at Vanguard where I opened my account. (Side note: if you're not saving for retirement, you should be! The younger you are the easier it is. I particularly like Roth IRA's because you can always withdraw your contributions at any time, no penalty, and can withdraw up to $10,000 in earnings for a first house or in case of hardship. You use after tax money to open the account, and then it grows tax free and you pay no taxes when you use it down the road. For more on why Roth IRAs are the awesomest awesome that ever was awesome, check out this blog post.) I'd saved up a bit particularly for this, but I did dip a bit into my general savings/emergency fund. There's a maximum contribution of $5000/year for people below the age of 50, and I'd like to put that much in before the end of the year. I think the market is cheaper than it will be for a long time, plus compounding generally favors investing as soon as you can. So, one thing I'd like to do this year is max out my retirement account.

Since the end of high school, I've always had this wild dream of becoming a Foreign Service Officer. The spring of my sophomore year in college, I took the written exam while I was studying abroad in Paris. (It's offered in tons of places in the US, too, but because I was out of the country I got to take it at the US Embassy there, which was gorgeous.) I passed it and got invited to the Oral Assessment, which I failed. And we're not talking a close failure either: I bombed. It was a mess. I hadn't been able to sleep the night before, and I just stumbled over everything and it was all kinds of terrible. I've been thinking of trying again. As part of that, I've been thinking of learning Arabic. While you don't need to know a foreign language to join, knowing a "super critical needs language" (their words, not mine) like Arabic helps a lot. So I've been thinking of taking Arabic classes. They'd be about $800 for the fall semester.

I also want to replenish my emergency fund. While I'm probably pretty secure at my job, and if anything did happen my parents would take care of me (in some future post I'll go into my parents and finances), I like having a bit of savings. I think it's important to save. And I want to get those numbers back up.

So, if I want to add personal training, it means cutting either Arabic, retirement savings, or replenishing my emergency fund. If personal training seems like it's worth it, adding to my emergency fund will probably be the thing to go: it's still got a few thousand dollars in it now, and I can build it up to a level I'm more comfortable with eventually. I'm still not 100% certain though.

So, question for anyone who's ever had a personal trainer: do you think it's worth it? What do you get from your trainer that you couldn't get on your own? How do you think s/he helps you?

And, for everyone, trainer or no, base instinct, what would you do? Pick three: trainer, Arabic, retirement, emergency fund.

Onward and Downward

2009-08-05T10:08:00.003-04:00

Weight: 261.5
BMI: 44.88

Counting both the day I started and today, I am 30 days into this whole weight loss journey. When I started, pounds dropped pretty quickly. But after that, things became tougher. I'd be coaxing my body to drop just a bit of weight each day, and some days it would. Other days it would revolt. There were quite a few days where it just said "nah, I think I'd rather go up on the scale today."

Somehow, since I've gotten home from San Diego, the pounds have been just melting off. Initially it made sense: I was bloated from eating lots on Friday but didn't actually weigh that much. But, this is beyond just bloat dropping. I've lost over a pound for 5 straight days. I'm 4 pounds below my prior low. This, really, is just wonderful.

Too good to last, yes, but for now wonderful.

I'm now down 16.5 pounds in total (1.1 day to day). That means I've lost 5.94% of my starting bodyweight and 2.83 points of BMI. In order to hit my mini goal of 250 pounds by September 15th, I need to lose 1.96 pounds a week. This is the first time ever that my mini goal has needed a sustained loss of less than 2 pounds a week.

I am smiling. And it's not just numbers that are making me smile. I walk to work every day, and I now walk fast enough to catch a light I used to miss. The suits I wear to work every day all feel a little big. I was able to increase the resistance on the elliptical machine and still blast through my workout. When I stopped by the grocery store after the gym to pick up some extra produce, I actually stuck to my shopping list. Yesterday after dinner, I wasn't all that hungry for desert, and it wasn't because I ate too much.

There's a long hard road ahead. For now, though, I'm happy to be walking it.

And in case anyone's curious, thus far the new guy seems really nice. I ate breakfast at my desk this morning without feeling embarrassed about it, and it was definitely in large part due to all of your "He probably can't hear you and wouldn't even care!" comments, so thank you. :)

Tuesday Weigh In

2009-08-04T12:10:00.004-04:00

I somehow didn't hear my alarm this morning and woke up late for work, but I did hop on the scale before I dashed off:

Weight: 262.6
BMI: 45.07

In the chaos of the morning, I just made a mental note as I finished rushing to brush my teeth, pack lunch, etc. I just kept the number in my head and planned to jot it down at work.

Then, as I was on the way to the office, it hit me: I've lost 15 pounds. NICE!

So, there's a bit of a spring in my step today. I'm still worried about the issues I brought up in last night's post, but I'll deal with that tomorrow. For today, I've lost 15 pounds (15.4 to be precise), and if that's not excellent I don't know what is.

A New Colleague, and New Embarrassment

2009-08-03T23:51:00.008-04:00

So, I work in DC as a low-level economist. It's basically an entry level job, the sort of thing one has for about a year or two before moving on to grad school or something else. My office is this shared, sort of U-shaped thing--you can't see the other person unless we both roll out our chairs about 5 feet, but we can always hear each other. It's about one step up from a cubicle in terms of privacy.

Last Friday, my office-mate, easily my best friend in DC, left for another job. Her new position is in Texas: close to her family, better paying, more what she wanted to do, all around an excellent and amazing step for her. But it means this wonderful, sweet girl who I loved to bits is being replaced with a stranger. And I just found out he starts on Wednesday.

I am petrified.

One of the things that's big for me is eating in bits throughout the work day so I'm not particularly hungry at the end of the day. I'm really bad with night time eating, but I've found that having a dinner early in the evening (6:30 or 7) and then essentially closing up the kitchen works really well for me. So, on a typical work day, I'll bring:

1 banana
1 fat-free yoplait yogurt
1 chewy chocolate chip granola bar or 1 polly-o string cheese
~12 baby carrots (I guesstimate when packing in the morning and count before I eat)
1 apple or other piece of fruit (today I brought 1/2 cup of blueberries)
1 sandwich, made of: 2 pieces of light style Pepperidge Farm bread, 1 slice of cold cut (right now, I'm working on a half pound of roast beef), 1 tablespoon of miracle whip, two slices of tomato, and a bit of lettuce.

This actually only adds up to about 600 calories throughout the day. Most days I have the banana and yogurt shortly after arriving, the granola bar around 11 or so, the roast beef sandwich at 1 or 2, and snack on the fruit and baby carrots throughout the rest of the afternoon. When I go home around 5:30 or 6, I'm hungry but not ravenous, and have 600-700 calories left to make myself a relatively extravagant dinner.

There are many, many reasons I love this system. The first is, quite simply, that it works. The lack of slip ups on work days is proof of its day-to-day effectiveness. I like that it doesn't feel like deprivation: I get to pack a whole ton of food in my bag each morning, and when I get hungry at work, it's fine because I've almost always got something left to eat. When I've eaten everything, I tend to be sated--there's a lot of fiber and a lot of volume in it. I like that it leaves me enough calories to eat a big dinner. I like that when I'm hungry at night, I can tell myself "it's okay, tomorrow you'll have enough food at work and feel better" and I like that it's true. I like that on mornings when I actually am ravenous--which has happened once or twice in my 4 weeks of diet--I can actually get something that's close to a binge in terms of satisfaction by eating the sandwich, granola bar, yogurt and banana all in the morning, and that I'll still have baby carrots and another fruit to get me through the day. I can (partially) lose control, but since all the food I have is the food I've brought in with me, I don't actually mess up my diet. I like that it's healthy and delicious and feels like it has variety: there are tons of flavors of yoplait, tons of different fruits I can bring, the sandwich is different depending on which meat I use, and I even get some chocolate in the granola bar.

There are many, many things I like about my diet. Up to this point, there's been precisely one thing I've disliked: people walking in on me eating. I can almost hear them thinking, Ew, gross fat Hadley, of course she'd be eating when I stop by her office. And, for self-conscious me, that's a substantive drawback. But it's rare enough that it's only happened a few times thus far, and is easily outweighed by all the good parts. 98% of the time, the only person who could hear me eating was my dear office-mate, who was possibly the sweetest and most non-judgmental person in DC. (Yes, I know that's like saying someone's the least corrupt person in New Jersey, but I swear she'd count as nice even by normal standards.) So yeah, she could hear me eating, and while I'd still rather she didn't, I wasn't really embarrassed because it was just her.

Now, the person who's going to hear me eating is some strange boy who could easily be thinking, Ew, gross, I can hear her eating like all the friggin' time. And who could tell people, "No wonder Hadley's so fat, I can hear her eating like half the day." Scary!

So, I have until Wednesday to figure things out. I need to balance the embarrassment vs. my continued success. And I think I want to not be embarrassed about my weight in the future more than I want to not be embarrassed by eating seemingly-massive amounts right now, but right now, well, I'm just scared.

Goodbye, 5% of my starting weight.

2009-08-03T13:24:00.003-04:00

Weight: 263.6
BMI: 45.24

Let's start with the good news first: I'm more than half way to my mini goal! I'm 28 days in and I've now lost 14.4 pounds and 5.18% of my starting body weight. My deadline to hit 25--a 10% loss of my initial bodyweight--is 9/15/2009, which is 43 days away. No matter which way you slice it, I'm pretty darn happy with the 263.6 number.

Things, however, weren't looking so sunny immediately upon my return from San Diego. The first two days went relatively well. I perhaps ate a bit more than I would've if I'd been at home, but not by much. By mid week I'd succumbed to french fries and a glass of white wine. Thursday I went on an In-n-Out burger outing. Friday was pretty darn close to an unmitigated disaster. In the morning I ate a scoop of hash browns, two pieces of sausage, and berries and cream. On the flight from San Diego to Atlanta I ate both complimentary cookies and an $8 turkey, apple and brie Sandwich with honey mustard (delicious, by the way). Stuck in the Atlanta airport, I ate a grilled Chick-Fil-A sandwich and fries. Disaster. Delicious, delicious disaster.

And it showed. My weight on Friday evening was a super high 269.4. By Saturday morning I was down to the still insanely high 268.0.

I dropped quickly from there though. Yesterday, I joyfully hit a new low of 264.7, and today, an even lower 263.6. I feel like I might be in for a small gain tomorrow, but we shall see.

I'm on track. I'm more than halfway to my first goal. And I've lost an amazing 14.4 pounds in 28 days. Now if I can only stop dreaming about Chick-Fil-A's delicious, delicious waffle fries, we'll be in business.

265.5!

2009-07-25T10:04:00.005-04:00

Weight: 265.5
BMI: 45.47

Yay!

After a ridiculous--and unwarranted--gain (I got up to 270.7 ), I've managed to work my way back down. I could explain the ups and downs, but a graph is just so much easier:

Today, I fly out to San Diego. I'll be out of my element and away from calories I can count, but I think I'll still be okay. I'm bothered by the upcoming lack of scale, but I'll find some way to muddle through.

For now, I actually need to run and finish packing.

But before I go, 265.5! That's -12.5 pounds. It means I've lost 4.5% of my body weight and 2.15 points of BMI. If that's not something to smile about, I don't know what is.

We need to talk

2009-07-22T18:16:00.003-04:00

Weight: 268.2
BMI: 46.03

Okay, scale, you don't like me and I don't like you, but this is really getting ridiculous. Three straight days of gains. Three days of below 1300 calories. THREE DAYS OF GAINS. 1.4 pounds up. What are you trying to do to me?

And so the battle continues.

I won't give in. I'm going to stick to the diet. I'm going to lose the weight. You're going to lose this one, scale. Three days of taunting won't be enough to make me give up. And guess what, sucker? Four days won't either. Just try it. (Okay, I'm sorry I said it. Don't try it! Please!)

I won't lie. My spirit feels broken right now. I'm not going to eat away my problems or go off course, but I don't feel motivated like I used to.

Feeling All Kinds of Icky

2009-07-21T13:40:00.005-04:00

Blah.

Weigh in for yesterday, 7/20:
Weight: 267.2
BMI: 45.86

Weigh in for today:
Weight: 268.0
BMI: 46.00

Well, I just feel all kinds of gross.

I haven't gone off track in terms of food: 1200 calories/day. I've been doing a solid job with exercise, too. I did 30 minutes of elliptical on Saturday, 35 on Sunday, and a full 45 yesterday/Monday. And yet, the scale goes up up up. By 1.2 pounds in the past two days.

Normally, I would have to tell myself that it's all right and these things happen and that if I stick with the program the pounds will eventually come off. I try to just find the motivation, constantly reminding myself of that one thought.

Now?

I know it's true. I know the weight will come off eventually if I keep down the right path. But I don't need to tell myself it for motivation. I'm not scared any more. I know I can do this. I had my parents here this past weekend. We went out to eat. They bought me ridiculously fatty things. Delicious and amazing leftovers and treats got put in my fridge. And it didn't shake me one bit.

I want this. I want it badly. More than I've wanted anything in a long, long while. Two days ago, every inch of me hurt, and I dragged myself to the gym anyway and spent 5 more minutes working out than I had the day before. Yesterday, I felt incredibly, amazingly sore, and guess how I responded? By getting up and going to the gym, working out 10 minutes more than the last time, and going even faster than I had. I'm sore and in pain and pretty darn hungry, but it's okay.

I can do this. I want to do this. And I will do this.

The scale will come along eventually. In the mean time, I'm going to go kick ass.

Fun with Graphs

2009-07-19T14:19:00.010-04:00

As I've brought up a few times, I keep an Excel chart of my weight loss. I do this for several reasons:

1. I'm a nerd.
2. Recording day-to-day makes me more accountable
3. It's good to look at when I'm losing motivation
4. I have a lot of fun doing so

Today, I'm going to share some of the fun graphs I have, why I have them, what they mean, and how they help.

The most basic graph I keep is just one of my overall weight loss progress. As of today it looks like:

I've been lucky thus far in mostly having consistent losses, but that's not always the case. While the scale is a good overall judge of progress, it's a very noisy instrument. A lot of the time it'll pick up that your dinner last night was salty, or that you're bloated, or that you're dehydrated or that it's that time of the month, or a variety of other things rather than the actual truth of what's going on. This is the reason many people will just weigh themselves once a week: they just want to get an overview of the numbers, they don't want to deal with the day to day noise.

While I see the appeal of that, getting a reading once a week doesn't make your readings more accurate: it just gives you one data point to go on, and you don't know if it's actually your real weight showing up. There is, however, a solution for that: the moving average. So, I have a chart that shows my real weight, and the five day moving average. (For the first 1-4 days, I did an average of how many days I had data for.) As long as you're losing weight, even if you have days you go up and days you go down, the moving average should head consistently downward. Take a look:

Notice how on July 10th, even though I gained .8 pounds and saw a sharp spike in my day to day weight, the moving average of my weight was still falling. The moving average tends to be more valuable if you are having more up and down fluctuations than I am at the moment, but I still like having it for when I do get those--and if my previous attempts at weight loss are any indication, I eventually will.

Now, neither of those are the coolest chart I have.

One of the big things they advocate at Spark People is attaching deadlines to your weight loss goals. Some sort of "A wish + a deadline = goal!" cheese. To a certain extent, I think this isn't optimal: set your goal too low and you end up not really challenging yourself; aim too high and you're in for a sea of disappointment. If you use Spark to track your weight (or Fitday, and perhaps other weight loss software I'm not familiar with), they'll have one static line for your goal. If you're not closely racing the line, it's really not all that helpful: if you're well under or well over it, it's really not showing much about how your most recent progress is comparing to what you need to get to. (Spark will also only track one weight goal at a time, which I find relatively annoying.)

As of now, I have three goals: one short term, one long term, and one long term stretch.

My short term goal is to get to 250lbs by September 15th. The date is arbitrary, but the poundage is meaningful. 250 will mean I've lost 28 pounds, or 10% of my starting body weight. (Technically, the 10% mark will be met at 250.2, I rounded.) 250 is also just a big milestone number, and it seems to work in many ways. The 9/15 date was picked just by playing in calculators: 10/1 seemed too easy, 9/1 too harsh.

My long term goal is to no longer be obese at my brother's wedding, which will mean getting to 175 by August 14th, 2010. My long term stretch goal is to not be overweight by my brother's wedding, which would mean hitting 145 or below by the same 8/14/2010 goal. To be 100% honest, I would be overjoyed and incredibly proud of myself with either. For now, they're just giving me benchmarks.

My favorite chart makes use of all three goals. It's aim is to answer the question of "how much sustained weight would I need to lose per week to hit my goals of 250, 175, and 145?" It looks like this:

I'm also going to show you guys this as a table, since I think it's helpful to look at both:

There's a column for date, weight, days till 9/15, the average amount of weight I'd need to lose each week to get to 250 as of that day, the days till my brothers wedding, the average amount of weight I need to lose each week to get to be not obese, and the same for not overweight.

What I like so much about this chart is that I can see how well I'm doing relative to how well I need to do to hit my goal. Every day I lose .4 pounds or more (the equivalent of 2.8lbs/week), all my goals become easier. When I lose .3 pounds a day (2.1/week), my short term goal and the "not obese" goal are both easier, but the road to my stretch goal becomes slightly harder. .2 pounds day (1.4/week) and everything becomes harder.

But the best part is, those rules aren't constant. Not too long ago, a .3 pound day was bad for my short term and stretch goals. When I started my short term goal, it meant losing 2.8 pounds a week. Because I've been above pace so much, I now only need to lose a smidge more than 2 pounds a week. Progress!

There are a few reasons I like this standard so much. One of them is that it's forward-looking: all the other stats just judge progress thus far. This one is more about how each day will impact the rest of my journey. Essentially, every day I do an awesome job makes the days ahead easier.

The thing about my goals is, while they're there, and I like using them to measure progress and stay on top of myself, they're not really what I care about. Yes, it would be nice to look fabulous in my brother's wedding pictures: I'm going to have to see them for years and years to come. But, relative to how much I care about the reasons I'm actually doing this, it's meaningless. I care a bit, but it's not really what I care about.

I care about my future health: I don't want to get diabetes, or heart disease, or all those other things that being obese makes me more likely to get. Most importantly, I don't want my weight to hold me back any more.

I want to sit on airplanes without feeling bad for the person sitting next to me. I want to be able to run if I need to and not get winded. I want to go to the beach and not feel like I shouldn't be wearing a bathing suit. I want to not be scared of amusement park rides. I want to just live my day to day life without there being things I can't do because I'm too damn fat.

The goals and charts are just window dressing, they're not what matters. But they help me get through the day to day, and keep me solid when I want to stray. The charts help prove what I inherently know: each day I do a good job makes the next day easier.

A Quick Catch All Post

2009-07-19T13:13:00.005-04:00

Weigh in for yesterday, 7/18:
Weight: 267.0
BMI: 45.83

Weigh in for today:
Weight: 266.8
BMI: 45.79

Not only have I not gained with my parents here, I've actually managed to keep losing. Not only did I hit the -10lbs mark, I flew past it. As of this very moment, I am 11.2 pounds lighter than when I started this journey. How awesome is that?

I promise a full gym story at some later date, but for now I just want to share that I did, in fact, go to a gym yesterday. I worked my ass off too. It was all around excellent. What's important is that I went (despite being really, really scared to) and I feel all right going again.

11.2 pounds down, many, many pounds to go. Progress!

A new low and food choices

2009-07-17T11:54:00.005-04:00

Weight: 268.2
BMI: 46.03

Wowza. 268.2! I actually feel, for the first time, like I belong in the 260s. I'm incredibly, incredibly happy with that number. It means I've now lost 9.8 pounds in total. That's 3.53% of my bodyweight and 1.68 points of BMI. And that is pretty damn awesome. I honestly was smiling all the way to work. I'm so, so happy about it.

Yesterday I did very well foodwise, albeit making one slight mistake at dinner. I had a very light breakfast and lunch, and snacked on baby carrots at work. Friends and I were going to see the new Harry Potter immediately after work (it's excellent, you should see it), and it was decided to go to Subway for a quick dinner before the movie. Yesterday afternoon I spent a good bit of time on the Subway site, pouring over the nutritional information trying to make an ideal choice. I debated between going for the extravagant 380 calorie Subway melt, going with a turkey sandwich with light mayo (280 for the sandwich plus 50 for the mayo for 330), or, what I decided would be my choice, a 290 cal mayo-less ham and turkey. I knew I wouldn't be able to enjoy a turkey sandwich with neither cheese nor mayonnaise, so I'd ruled that out early on, but I thought maybe, just maybe, having two different types of meat on the sandwich might make up for the lack of delicious, delicious cheese and condiments.

So, when we got there, I ordered the ham and turkey. And then, in that second when he asked me if I wanted any sauces, I said yeah, just a little bit of light mayo. I stopped him to make sure it was just a bit, but it was still, in the end, either 50 or 10 calories more than I really needed (depending on how you count). Lyn, over at Escape from Obesity, had this great post about how you need just a split second of determination to do the right thing. And where she passed her test, I failed mine.

But the damage wasn't bad, I was still under my limit for the day, and I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I did the right thing for the rest of the night, refusing the many offers from my friends to have a few pieces of candy or a handful of popcorn. I did, overall, a really great job resisting temptation last night.

As I write this, I'm about an hour away from going out to a colleague's going away lunch. It will be challenging, to say the least. We're going to this pizza place called Ella's, which of course has no calorie stuff listed online. I've spent probably more time looking at the menu then I'd like to confess, and still haven't decided what I'm going to get. I know it might sound crazy to those of you who are used to being healthy, but I really don't want to call attention to the fact that I'm on a diet just yet, especially not to my colleagues. I know, I know, telling people is great and will help build you a support system and you'll be less likely to fall back and whatever else, but I'm honestly just still too embarrassed to at this point. I think ordering a salad would do just that, so I don't think I'm going to do so.

So, pizza it will be. The question between plain and veggie is up in the air. Plain pizza is my standard, and it's my favorite. Getting one of the varieties with vegetables on it—of those options I've been leaning towards wild mushroom—would be healthier and get more nutrients in. I'd also like it substantially less, and thus probably eat less of it. On the other hand, if I'm going out spending money and calories on pizza, it seems kind of silly to not get pizza I'd like. I'm not saying I should go crazy and order the four cheese one, or eat the whole thing, but …

I don't know. I'm possibly making excuses. I'm going to have a tough night (and a tough weekend) in terms of food since my parents are going to be here. I think I'll be able to at least somewhat minimize my food exposure by telling them I have lots of work, but there's no way around the fact that I'm simply going to be eating more than I've been eating since this diet began.

I know, I know, this is why you should tell people. I just don't quite feel ready to.

The worst part about this may be that I'm so damn close to 268, and with that the accomplishment of having dropped a full 10 pounds. It would be a big achievement, and I want to get there. Since at this point I'm just hoping not to gain up to the 270s while they're here, it's going to be tricky.

Hopefully I'll be strong, and even if I can't hit 268 this weekend, I'll hit it next week. And then, hopefully, I'll be able to not gain massive amounts of weight in San Diego.

It could happen, right?

I've got a long, long road ahead.

On weigh ins and motivation

2009-07-16T11:32:00.003-04:00

Weight: 269.3
BMI: 46.22

In recent mornings when I've hopped on the scale, I've always been quite certain that the number would go back up. This morning was no different. I stared at the glass monster that lurks in my bathroom for a short bit, resigned at the bad news it had for me. I tapped it, let it zero, and hopped on. And there, staring back at me, was not bad news, not dreadful news, not even "no progress news." Looking back at me instead was .4 pounds less than yesterday: the slow, and steady march of progress.

It's just plain weird.

In my life, I've seriously attempted to lose weight precisely two other times. Each time, my morning weigh in was filled with anticipation. Each time, I was working *hard* at my weight loss. I was moving as much as I could, eating healthfully, writing prolifically, and generally putting my heart and head into losing the damn weight. The scale was my (imperfect, noise-filled) progress checker. Each day, I cared deeply about what would show up, and worried if it would be an up or a down, and how great any loss would be. The morning weigh in had mystery and excitement: a daily battle of expectations vs. reality.

My weigh ins these days are nothing of the sort. Each morning I wake up, and I'm pretty damn sure the scale is going to go up. It's not even a question. And since I started 10 days ago, every morning but one I've been wrong.

I don't really seem to believe that I'm actually losing weight.

One of the things that's weird about this "don't say diet" of mine is that, well, I'm not really on board with it. I mean, I've been very much not overeating (to the point where I have, in fact, been undereating). I'm certainly eating less than I'm burning, so by the rules of physics and logic, I should be losing weight. And, what with the world tending to follow those rules and whatnot, I am in fact losing weight. I just don't believe it.

I think the main problem is that I started this diet, essentially, on a lark. Late last Tuesday evening, I hopped on the scale in my bathroom and just thought, "hmm, 278, that's a pretty high number. Maybe I should diet." But I wasn't really being all that serious about it. I messed around and set up an excel spreadsheet—one of these days we'll discuss what a giant nerd for numbers I am—and sort of just let it be. The next day I weighed myself, I was down a bit, and sort of decided "I guess I will go ahead and diet." And I did.

There was no moment of reckoning, no spark to get started, just a blah, meh, I guess I might as well. And that's not really a good way to start a diet.

On the other hand, 10 days of sustained healthy food choices and an 8.7 pound loss are, absolutely, a way to start one. I'm moving along pretty well, I've found some goals and motivation, and I've been able to keep going even through some pretty heavy temptation. And I've just kept muddling through, slowly but surely sticking to things over the past week and a half.

I just need to believe that I am actually doing this.

And the scale goes down again

2009-07-15T14:14:00.004-04:00

Weight: 269.7
BMI: 46.43

First, I suppose, we ought to talk numbers. 269.7 is not up from 270.5. It is, in fact, down by .8 pounds. So, a small victory there. I still don't feel like I've really *earned* this weight loss yet, and I'm certain it will disappear shortly. There will be no "goodbye 270s!" victory dance just yet, mostly because I don't really accept that I've bid the 270s goodbye yet. They will, I'm certain, be back.

At a certain point I'm going to have to accept that at least some of this is not phantom weight loss. Yes, dropping from 275 to 271.9 in one day was shocking. Yes, when it happened it probably wasn't all a real loss. But, at this point I'm starting to think it's unlikely that my actual real weight is 275 and that these are only phantom pounds slipping away.

But unlikely doesn't mean impossible, and I do think I'm weighing in these days at less than I really weigh. It's just not conceivable that I've really lost this much considering that I haven't actually been working out much, just cutting calories. And while I'm probably unlikely to go all the way back up to 275 at this point, I think heading back up to the 270s is eminently likely. Maybe the .2 pound loss I had the day before was real, maybe the .5 pound losses the two days before that were even real, but .8 in a single day considering I did no exercise is just highly unrealistic. Maybe if I'd spent 4 hours or something hiking.

As far as other diet updates, I was planning on having to go to a policy forum today and was anticipating that I'd need to eat lunch there. At the last minute my boss asked me to cut the forum to finish up a quick project for him. In some ways this is good, because it means I didn't end up having to eat one of the god knows how many calories sandwiches that were going to be served. However, since I planned on going, I skipped breakfast, and only brought 13 baby carrots to work, figuring the sandwich from the event would be taking up most of my calories allowance for the morning and afternoon.

Instead, all the food I've got for the whole work day is those 13 baby carrots. I've already eaten them, and I'm famished. Even though it's quite a bit of fiber and volume considering they're a grand total of 50 calories, in an absolute sense, it's just not much food. So, I'm very, very hungry. And I'm going to be hungry all afternoon. But, what can you do?

I'm not sure how I'll work food for tonight. Since I finally finished that roast beef I've been slightly adrift in terms of what I should do for food. I had a piece of the frozen chicken last night, but there was sort of a stinky smell from the bag. So, even though I ate that piece and am not feeling sick or anything, I went ahead and tossed the rest. The jar of tikka masala sauce is now open—and has an expiration date of 7/22—so I should perhaps try to eat that, but I'll be honest and say it's pretty unappealing at the moment.

What I also have, that is also expiring soon, is barbecue chicken and 97% fat free hot dogs. Now, I don't have hot dog buns for the hot dogs, but I could just use a regular piece of (reduced calorie) bread. At just 45 calories a dog they're not at all expensive to eat. I could in fact eat two hot dogs, each on a piece of light style bread, and put 10 calories of ketchup on each, and only be at 200 calories.

I may, in fact, do just that, because that sounds like a really good amount of food for the number of calories it would cost. Of course, as that would put me at only 250 calories for the day, I should probably plan on having a bit more. As my possible addition, I'm going to allow myself a tuna melt or any variation thereof. 120 calories in the can of tuna, 80 calories in a slice of cheddar, 60 calories of miracle whip, and 90 calories in light style bread. That would be adding an additional 350 calories to the day, and ring me up to 600 for the whole day. Which is, you know, few, but still substantive.

I perhaps should eat more than that, and perhaps will, but I'm also not going to force myself to if I end up not being hungry after the tuna. After all the years of overeating, I'm not going to stuff down food just to meet a daily 1200 calorie goal. It might not be the healthiest thing in the world, but so long as I'm not doing it regularly, I'll be fine. It will just be an one-time bonus 600 calorie deficit.

So, I took a before photo . . .

2009-07-14T21:11:00.007-04:00

A few before photos, actually. They're really bad. Like, really bad. Like I feel terrible I've made everyone look at me for all these years.

No, I'm not sharing.

Maybe when I've lost a bit and want to share progress I will. But for now they can be my icky "omg gross" secret. I intentionally wore very tight clothes for the photos to make the difference easier to see later on, but YEESH. I'm very, very sad faced at the moment.

So, when I started up this whole diet thing, I joined Spark People again under a quickie name that I just made to set up an account. I'd been using that for the past few days, for tracking purposes, but had been intentionally not participating in the community. A little over a year ago I lost a little under 20 pounds using this account.

I'm excited to actually rejoin the Spark community. I still remember a few people from there fondly, and especially one of the groups called Done being the fat girl. So, I am excited to get back into that, and to get started again with everything there. My new account name over there is HalvingHadley, so please come on by and visit.

Since I'm not posting a before photo, I will instead post the current excel graph of my weight loss. I've definitely got a trend going:

Anyway, that's where I'm going to leave it for now. Have a nice night all, and I'll report in with a number tomorrow. (Or with random insomniac musings in a few hours.) Again, fearing a gain, but I suppose we'll see what happens.

Turbulence expected ahead

2009-07-14T12:31:00.004-04:00

Thinking about it more, this was, really, a terrible time to decide to lose weight. I say that not as a way of turning back, or to indicate any plan to do so, but just to acknowledge the fact that, if I tried to come up with a list of suboptimal times to lose weight, this would probably be up there with the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

I've got a few specific schedule challenges ahead, which I'll talk about below:

Policy forum lunch on 7/15: Tomorrow, we're hosting a policy forum. I have to go to it. In some ways, this is good. The chairs in the auditorium are a little on the tight side, and sitting in them always reminds me that I want to shed some pounds. However, after the forum there's going to be lunch, and I'm going to have to eat it. The lunch will be calorific sandwiches. I'm just going to have to suck it up and eat one.

Coworker going away lunch on 7/17: One of my coworkers is leaving soon to move to another state and another job. I like her bunches, and it’s very sad to see her go. On Friday, a few people have scheduled a going away lunch for her. I'm going to have to go—I want to go—and I'm going to have to eat food. I'll skip breakfast, eat something light, etc, but it'll certainly be more calories than I planned.

Parents in town 7/17-7/20: My parents are going to be in town this weekend. This will make things extremely challenging, to say the least. A visit from them means lots of my favorite foods from New York, lots of meals out, and a gigantic trip to the grocery store. I'm not looking forward to it. On Sunday, when I decided this diet was something I really wanted to stick with, I asked if they could maybe reschedule for some point later on the pretext of having massive amounts of work. They couldn't change their hotel reservation, so here they will be. It'll be difficult, and I might even gain a few, but I can aim to be way better than I'd previously been.

Conference in San Diego 7/26-7/31: I'm going to a conference out in San Diego for the last week of July, and I'm expecting it to be a very, very challenging week. I won't be able to weigh myself at all. I'll have no idea of the calorie content of any of the food. And oh, the temptation that awaits. Every morning, a croissant and pastry laden continental breakfast. Then an hour and a half later, temptation again as far as the eye can see. Then an hour and half after that, I'll be served an extravagant lunch. A mere two hours later, there will be cookies and brownies and other snack food. And a few hours after that, a reception with wine and hors d'oeuvres. Then, a two hour dinner, with probably three or four courses. A ton, ton, ton of food. And it's going to be like that, every day, for five days. Yeep. I'll need all the strength in the world. The inability to weigh myself combined with the massive amounts of temptation is just going to be all sorts of trouble.

San Diego will be the worst, but it's luckily still a bit away. I have time to get some momentum going. The conference is at a very nice resort, and I'm sure they'll have a fitness club that I'll be able to patronize if I so choose. There will also be, at the very least, lots of space for me to go on walks in. And walks I can and will do.

Anyway, those are the challenges I've got in the upcoming days. Will I be able to meet them? To thrive even with them? Will I just muddle through with not too many gains? Or will I be blown horribly off course ne'er to recover? Only time and strength of will shall tell.

Of brownies and weigh ins

2009-07-14T09:40:00.002-04:00

Weight: 270.5
BMI: 46.43

I was pretty darn certain I was going to gain weight today. Not too many days ago, I dropped 3.1 pounds. I went from 275 to 271.9 in a single day. It was, I figured, unsustainable. My dieting experience is filled with fake drops. It would correct itself, I figured, the next day.

It didn't. Instead, I went down to 271.4, and continued waiting for the other shoe to drop. Next day (yesterday) I hit 270.7. Great, but unrealistic, since I knew my weight wasn't actually that low, and that I was in for a jump up.

Today, still no jump. I've got a much smaller loss than previous days, but a loss is a loss is a loss is a victory.

That wasn't the only reason I was expecting a gain. I didn't sleep much last night—I couldn't sleep so much I started a blog last night—and I ate, well, not more than I planned to, or more than I should've, but more than I needed.

Namely, I ate a brownie. A delicious fat witch brownie. A caramel witch, in fact. I'd ordered a whole bunch of brownies shortly before the 4th, with them getting shipped on the 6th. They arrived on the 8th, one day after I'd rather randomly decided I'd go on a diet because, what the heck.

I'd ordered, not a verifiable ton of brownies, but a lot. Six little ones, and six big ones: broken down as 4 baby brownies, 2 baby blondies, 3 caramel witches, 2 snow witches, and one big plain brownie. Now, this was a bit confusing: at this point, I wasn't really dedicated to the diet per se, it was still more of a lark. So sure, I ate a caramel witch that first night, but I decided to try and (mostly) do the right thing.

The next day, I gave three little ones away at work. I shipped a friend a care package with three little and two big. And, I kept 4 for myself. One I ate the first night. The other three I've had, one by one, over the course of the past 6 days. Last night was my last. It was delicious, but I'm glad they're gone.

Now, to be fair, I didn't eat much else yesterday. I had a 90 calorie chewy granola bar at work for breakfast, and an apple and packet of baby carrots for lunch. I'd been planning to bring slightly more, but I just forgot to put the stuff in my bag, so I just didn't eat more. For dinner, I had a roast beef sandwich comprised of two pieces of light style bread, two thin slices of roast beef that are about an ounce put together, and a dab (really, just a dab!) of miracle whip. Before the brownie (and accompanying large glass of milk), I was under 400 calories. With them, I was at 1088.

So, it wasn't, actually, a lot of food, but when I ate the brownie, I didn't need the brownie. I was a bit peckish, sure, but not the level of famished that I'm normally looking at when I start a meal. But I went for it, knowing I'd been obscenely good the rest of the day. It didn't turn out too poorly, so I guess that's just that.

There are no more brownies in the house, I lost .2 pounds yesterday, and I got a brand new blog out of the whole thing. Not too bad, eh?

And so, it starts . . .

2009-07-14T00:52:00.005-04:00

All things must come to an end. Before, however, things may end, they must begin. And so, with that in mind, let's start.

My name is Hadley. I'm morbidly obese. On July 7th, when I started my weight loss journey, I weighed 278 lbs. I'm down a bit now--I hit a new low of 270.7 yesterday--but not by much. I have a lot of weight to lose. I need to hit 145 to no longer be overweight. 145 lbs is, essentially, a world, 58 leagues, four languages and two centuries away, so I won't be focusing on that number much. Sure, yeah, it would be nice and maybe I'll get there eventually. For now though, it's such an alien concept I can't even really focus on it.

So I don't. I focus on not being morbid.

Morbidly obese is one of those icky, icky terms. It's one of those shock terms. Scary words. A scary concept. And yet, also day-to-day reality for me and millions of others.

Right now, my goal is just to not be morbid.

For that, I need to get to 233 pounds. That's a trim 45 pounds away from my starting weight and 37.7 pounds from my current low. It's pretty far away, there's no doubt about it. If you do the standard 1-2 pounds a week with the occasional slip up, you could spend anywhere between half a year and a year on it. But, 233 pounds is something I can imagine. It's a place I can see myself getting. And it's a place I'm going to go.

So let us drink (water, of course) to the end of morbidity, and, one hopes, to delayed mortality.