A Parental Visit, Laced with Fear

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

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.

Trade Offs

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.

To train or not to train

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.

So, I took a before photo . . .

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.