Around the Neighborhood

So, I've been walking daily - except Sunday. Seems like it would be a good plan to take one day off; sleep late, and rest.

Saturday, Thomas and I went for a long walk - all the way down to the Marina and back. Why yes, we have a boat slip in our community... not that I have a boat, or even want a boat, but the point remains that I could have a boat. If, you know, I wanted one. Here's a lovely view of the Elizabeth River from the dock...

We walked a little over three and a half miles and admired all the McMansions that are in the back end of our community. The main road of our village is U shaped, and there are several smaller roads that go off of that U that are all considered part of the community. And all the way in the back, down the longest of the of the side roads, there's the Marina, and the Private Road. There's about seven houses off that private road, and we couldn't really see them very well; each of those has its own private boat slip, but not much yard. And honestly, they all looked the same from what we could see.

There are a lot of people who walk, run, bike or otherwise exercise around the community, so we nodded to a lot of people.

Because there are more people who are out on the sidewalks, there aren't as many wild animals - that we've found. Darcy has complained a bit that she misses the family of muskrats that live near our old place. Although we have found there are hundreds of turtles and large fish in this pond. We've gone over a few times with stale bread and frozen vegetables to feed the inhabitants.

And today, I discovered that there's a different sort of wild animal around here... the ferocious yap-dog.

Damn tea-cup sized dog wrapped its leash around my leg and bit the back of my calf. Twice.

And the owner decided to yell at ME about it?

Excuse me, lady, you're the one who can't control your rat on a string.

Yeeeesh.

Fortunately it didn't break skin, but honestly...

Broken Ideals

You know, losing weight didn't make me happy.

It sounds weird to say it, and god knows I get shit for it like you wouldn't believe, or maybe you would.

I lost 87 pounds, or thereabouts. And I wanted to think that I didn't have unrealistic expectations. I never thought I'd be hollywoodesque or suddenly beautiful. But I did think, MAYBE, it wasn't a terrible thing to hope I wouldn't hate myself so much.

But I did, and I begin to think, at 40, that's a trick this old dog isn't going to learn. I don't even know that it's possible for me to stop hating myself.

And on top of that, I ended up with problems; unwanted attention.

See, I used to have this neighbor. Bob.

And Bob was a drunken asshole. I don't think I ever saw the man sober. He lived in the apartment diagonal across the hall from us.

One day, I was outside, talking to one of the other neighborhood moms, while we were waiting for our daughters to get home from first grade - they were allowed to walk home from school, but for most of first grade, Darcy wanted me to be outside, waiting for her. Her dad would walk her over to the school sidewalk and let her go the rest of the way on her own. Small independences.

And Debbie was selling something - Pampered Chef stuff, maybe? I don't remember. I was leaning over the picnic table, looking at the brochure she had.

"Hey!" Bob tapped me. I'd like to say he tapped my shoulder, but he didn't. He stabbed me in the lower back/upper ass with his huge, blunt finger. "You look so hot, leanin' over like that, I took a picture." He shows me on his cell phone, this picture of my ass. He's seriously crowding my personal space and this guy is huge - well over six feet tall and probably a good 280 pounds. Like a linebacker who's been drinking too many beers.

"Um... yeah." I straighten up and move a little, trying to get out of his shadow. I don't like people looming over me. It's 2pm and I can already smell cheap beer and sweat.

The phone in his hand rings. "Oh, yeah, hey, yeah, I know, ain't it great... I just came over to tell her. So, you like that ass, huh?" He looks at me. "I texted the pic to my friend."

You did... what? I laugh uncomfortably and move further away; honestly at this point I'm trying to get Debbie between me and him. She's just as uncomfortable.

"Oh, look, she's laughin'," he says. "It's makin' her tits bounce around." He hands me the phone. "He wants to talk to you."

"Yeah, right. You know, I'm waiting for my seven-year-old daughter to get home from first grade." I give Bob a look, but if it impacts him at all, he completely ignores it. I look away from him and start talking to Debbie. Neither of us look at Bob, or the phone, or acknowledge anything else he says. He eventually wanders away.

A few weeks later, my husband goes off to New Jersey for business for a week. And Bob starts rattling the doorknob to my apartment every time he walks by. If the door's unlocked, he opens it.

I start to feel trapped in my own house. I don't like to go out at night to take out the trash and now I NEVER go all the way down to the mailbox after dark.

Thomas gets home, and I tell him what's been going on. A few days later, Debbie asks us if we can take care of her dog for the afternoon, because she's going to be gone all day. "Sure, no problem." It's not. I don't like dogs, but Debbie's isn't too bad.

We're out walking the dog when Bob rides up, drunkenly, on his bicycle.

"That ain't your dog. Did you steal that dog?"

"I don't see that it's any of your concern," Thomas says, handing the leash over to me. "I'd like you to leave my family alone."

"What, asshole?"

"You heard me." I don't know what Bob hears in Thomas's voice, but what I hear is the keys moving from Thomas's pocket to his hand. I look. He's done the Wolverine thing with his keychain; several keys poke out between his fisted knuckles. "You're harassing my wife. Don't talk to us. Don't talk to her."

Bob jumps off his bike and charges him. Thomas stands there, cool and collected. Bob tops him by a good five inches and at least a hundred pounds. I scramble to get my phone out of my pocket.

Bob ended up backing down, no punches thrown. But I thought I was going to be sick.

For this? I lost weight for this? To be treated like this? To garner this sort of attention?

It wasn't the whole reason; I got frustrated by the slow, creeping gains, the constant hunger and irritability.

But Bob scared the hell out of me.

We reported him to the apartment complex - I have serious trust issues with police, too, and I don't... technically being a douche canoe isn't against the law. And I have no faith that a police officer would take me seriously. The manager told him that he wasn't to speak to us, at all, or they'd evict him. One more complaint and he was out - we weren't the only people in the complex who'd complained about him.

I lost weight for this?

A Little Less than More

I don't think I can begin to explain exactly how much I hate being bipolar.

I rather expect there are worse things to be. And yet, sometimes being bipolar is damned exhausting.

As far as I can tell, I've been in a downswing for going on nine months.

Nine. Months.

I've had good days - even a few good spots... and I've had some really, really bad days. But mostly it's been a long, long cycle of down. Sad. Discouraged. Lazy. (Lazy is such a bad word. And yet I don't have a good word for the immense amounts of I-don't-want-to-do-Fuck-all that seems to come with these bad spells.) Angry. Frustrated. Self-hating.

And I can track right along with it, my weight loss. Or, one should say Weight Gain.

I weighed in last night at WW for the first time in three weeks. I've been skipping meetings. (I never used to do that. Even if we missed a meeting because of a holiday, or illness, I would go in for a weigh in at another time...) I was up almost 7 pounds.

Ok, let me back up and explain that. It's not up 7 pounds in a week... it was "only" one pound this week.

But it's up 7 pounds from where I was when I declared goal... it's up 7 pounds from my lowest weight, which was never as low as I wanted it to be. (I eventually declared goal at 134, with the intent of pushing for 125 anyway.) I managed to get down to 132 before I started this creep. (Creep: the slow, inexorable movement of soil downhill... geology 101, otherwise known as Rocks for Jocks.)

Right now, I'm having another twilight stage. Usually that's a good thing... twilight indicates that I'm coming out of the downphase... I am self-aware. I realize that things haven't been getting done (as an example, I haven't vacuumed the house in something like 2 months... I think the last time was right before my birthday party...) I notice that the house is a wreck and instead of wanting to go back to bed, I want to do something about it.

And yet, these last nine months have been dotted with twilights that have never, ever turned all the way into day.

I look back at the last nine months... and I've done nothing... I'm barely managing to maintain some sort of status quo, and honestly, the status is NOT quo. (The world is a messed up place... and I just need to rule it.)

I don't know.

I really don't. It may be time for me to go back on medication. On the other hand, that means finding a new psychiatrist/psychologist and going through the whole nine yards all over again... which I hate. I hate shrinks. I hate medications. I hate the clear, vivid gray that hangs over everything while I'm on meds.

And it's not as bad as it has been, the last few times I've done a medication regime. I haven't dug myself into debt. I'm not in the middle of several bad, destructive relationships. I'm just... not productive.

I mean, I've done some stuff. I've paid all the bills. I've kept the house in a reasonable state of tolerable-slovenly. I've had social outings (Too many, maybe!). I haven't - mostly - gone off the screaming deep end and bitten anyone's head off. I've done some writing.

And yet, I've run us dangerously close to the red line for money several months in a row. I've gained 7 pounds (I know, someone's going to say that 7 pounds isn't that much, but 7 pounds in 9 months is dangerously close to a dress-size... and it's been a constant gaining... the 7 pounds might be "not much" but I'd prefer it to be "not NORMAL".) I've stopped keeping my lists. (I'm usually a list-maniac... I like to track my daily chores, what I eat, my dinner plans for the week, my grocery lists, what coupons I have, what's on my social calendar, etc etc.) I don't feel connected to my husband. Or my daughter. Or my friends. I don't feel like I've had a meaningful conversation with anyone in the last several months.

I keep worrying that I'm killing my own twilight. That I start coming around and I see everything I've not-done in the last few months and I try so hard to get back to good that I smash my chances at sunshine and just dive back under the cloud cover. It's kept me holding on the ledge, instead of falling over the side.

But really, I'd like to get back on the mountain now.

ok?

Jeans

As if I needed more reasons to hate my body, I got two pieces of information this week that in turns disgust and amuse me.

First, I apparently have no ass.

Second, my thighs aren't big enough.

I went jeans shopping this past week with my friend Leslie. Shopping with Leslie is nothing like shopping with my other girlfriends. While my other girlfriends tend to tell me things are cute, Leslie spent most of her time criticizing. Not so much criticizing me, exactly, but the quality of the clothing, the fit, the color, the prices. She blames this on having a very picky father who insisted on absolutely the best, followed by years of being married to someone who - while he himself might not have had tons of cash, was at least the spoiled child of people with a lot of cash.

So... she's fussy about clothing.

And while I'm an apple, Leslie is a pear. (Well, a pear with an enormous chest.) I don't have a waist, so to speak. And I have absolutely no butt whatsoever. Any jeans that closed around my middle were baggy in the butt.

I had, actually, never noticed this. For me, what's always been more important about jeans fit was how well they reduced the look of my protruding stomach. One of the big problems I've had with my appearance, post weight-loss, is that I don't look thin. I am weighing in around 129-131 pounds (first thing in the morning) and yet I look like a smaller fat person.

"Well, that's unattractive," says Leslie, as I walk out of the fitting room in a pair of Old Navy sweetheart jeans. They're a size 4. SIZE. 4. Damnit.

"What is?" I turn around in the mirror.

"Your jeans... you bag in the butt. And believe me, in jeans, that's the place where you never, ever want to be baggy."

"What are you talking about?" The jeans were pretty damn snug, actually. They fit tight over my stomach and yet didn't spill muffin over the top.

Leslie walked over to the mirror and turned me until I could look at my butt. "Here."

She was right. Just under where my ass would be (if I had one) were a series of creases. I tried on another pair of jeans. And another. And we went to two more shops.

They all do it. Every. Single pair of jeans. Including the ones I was wearing.

I finally ended up getting two pairs of 4s at TJ Maxx anyway... they still bag in the butt, and yet it doesn't seem like there's anything I can do about it. If the jeans fit in the butt, I can't snap them closed (or if I can suck it in hard enough to zip them up, I get terrible muffin top.)

I'd feel even worse about this if it weren't for one consoling factor. Leslie's jeans might be stretched tight across her butt and thighs, but they gap terribly in the waist. No one ever has to wonder what kind of undies she's wearing...

So, I'm not unique, even if I am the only apple in my group of friends. At least my jeans are comfortable, rather than being stretched here and there, and making me worried that someone's going to feel tempted to drop an ice cube down the back of my pants.

Jeans are just Not Made for Women.

On the other hand, there's nothing I can do about my thighs. I already walk so much as to be ridiculous, and having lost 85 pounds, my thighs are measuring in around 18.5 inches at the moment. When I started the whole weight loss thing, my thighs were 27 inches around. I think I'll go ahead and stay in the higher risk category, ok? Ok.

Not So Much

Maintenance is, quite frankly, boring.

I have two more weeks to go until I'm Lifetime (free meetings for as long as I maintain my weight below 136 pounds...)

Technically, I think I'm not supposed to get below 132 pounds, either, but I think most leaders don't enforce that.

I'm not currently very happy with Weight Watcher's web site. If you're familiar with the site, you've probably already heard these complaints, but I'm going to reiterate them anyway.

I enter my weight on Tuesday morning, even tho my meetings are on Monday nights, since the day you enter your weight is when the site resets the weekly points meter. As far as I've ever been able to determine, there's no way to change this setting. Reality-wise speaking, it doesn't (or shouldn't) really matter when my points reset, and yet as we all know, losing weight is at least 75% a head game. The tricks we learn to help us cope with the fact that (and I still doubt this assertion) "nothing tastes as good as being thin feels," for the most part, we'd all rather be eating. (Especially me. Technically, I'm "thin". Or, at least, normal... and I don't feel it. I don't feel good about myself, I don't catch glimpses in the mirror and think "oh, wow, look at me." I look in the mirror and say "Jaysus! How can I have lost 85 pounds and still look like I should have Goodyear tattooed on my ass?" Believe me, chocolate cake tastes a LOT better than how I feel most days.)

So... my meetings are Monday night, and I enter my weight first thing Tuesday morning. (This also keeps the site from yelling at me all day Monday about not weighing in when my meeting isn't until 5:30pm anyway!)

I declared goal at 134 pounds. I actually weighed 133.4.

The next two weeks (weeks 1 and 2 of my six week maintenance period) I had no changes. That was pretty impressive, actually... week three, last week, I lost .4 pounds, which took me to 133 flat.

When I entered that weight in the site, I got the following (quoted from memory, so it might be slightly inaccurate) "Don't forget, you are supposed to be maintaining your weight. You might want to increase your points intake!"

Ok, look. I'm one pound BELOW my goal weight. This is not cause for alarm. Weight does, shockingly enough, fluctuate. Even a completely healthy person's weight can vary by up to 5 pounds in a single day just from intake, salt, chemical changes, etc.

This week, I gained a pound. I am now exactly on my goal weight, exactly 134 pounds.

And guess what?

If you said "I bet the site provided negative feedback again," you would be exactly correct!

"Oh! You gained a pound! Well, that's normal in maintenance. You might want to consider going back to what you did to lose weight in the first place."

I mean, talk about a contradictory message. Is it "normal" or is it "going back to what I was doing that made me lose weight."?

What's wrong with "You are still exactly in your range for maintenance. Good job!"

Grumbles.

In two weeks, I should hopefully be lifetime. And I'm seriously considering whether or not I want to continue to use the eTools, since they're currently "free" with my monthly pass, but if I want to keep using them after I am lifetime, I will have to pay the monthly fee. There isn't even a discount for Lifetime members, and the site is NOT what you'd call cheap. Hell, my Warcraft monthly fee is less than Weight Watchers. And believe me, I spend a LOT more of my time there.

So... the fact that the eTools feedback tends to be negative... well, it bugs me.

(While I was losing weight, it bugged me as well, so it's not like this is a new complaint. As I went along, entering my weights, I found that unless I lost over 1 pound but less than 2 pounds, I did NOT get encouraging feedback... what I often got was snarky feedback. "You lost .4 pounds. Are you happy with your weight loss? If not, see your leader for ideas on how you can increase your loss!")

Now, don't get me wrong, I get a lot out of the Weight Watcher's site, not the least of which is a slew of recipes that I use regularly.

But still... I'm wondering.

Do I really want to pay for something that frustrates me on a weekly basis?

(Addendum: It is possible, with Thomas's work "Health Initiatives" that we might be able to be reimbursed for the eTools... since he's also a lifetime member, if he signs back up for eTools after I make lifetime, I can use the tools to get my recipes and whatnot, ignore the tracker, and not deal with the snarky feedback. His company pays up to $250 a year for health initiatives - in addition to, I might add, paying his entry fee for the 5K he's running in October - and provided I can find some way of printing a reciept for the eTools, we can get it reimbursed to us. A year's worth of eTools is $192... so... I think we will go that route.)

Bad Attitude

"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive!"
"Only fools are positive."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive!"
"..."
-- Ferngully, Batty Koda and Zak Young

"Enjoy the journey..."
-- Beth

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."
-- Winston Churchill

I could go on...

But I won't.

I have a bad attitude. I'm cranky, sarcastic, snarky, negative. I'm pessimistic. I hate everything and everyone. Yes, even you. And your mother. And your mother's pumpkin pie.

Seethe.

You know, you positive people out there. You suck! Your chipper little attitudes and your Lee-press on smile and your smug little quotes...

Bite me.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard it, since I started watching my weight: If you don't think you can do it, you can't.

A good attitude makes it all possible.

(And by assumption/default, a bad attitude makes everything impossible.)

Oh, puh-leeeeeze!

Excuse me while I vomit up sunshine, unicorns and sparkly vampire sex. (Sorry, been reading Twilight recently... and while I love it, don't get me wrong, it is very often completely over the top and morbidly cutesy, a combination I never thought I'd see.)

You do not. Need. A positive attitude to accomplish ANYTHING.

If there's something worse than constantly having cutesy little pithy phrases rained over me like some fluffy bunny jerking off rainbows onto my head, it's being told that I should work on my attitude.

Fuck. You. Forget that.

Weight loss is work.

Exercising is work.

Being happy is also work.

Question: Why do I have to do everything?

The simple answer: I don't.

I do not have to be happy.

I do not have to have a good attitude.

I can still accomplish my goal without it.

Now, I'll admit, Thomas has had an easier time of it... he has lost weight faster, easier. And honestly, except for that second meeting, he's been relatively laid back about the whole thing... now, one might wonder (and I do...) does his good attitude come from the fact that the whole thing has been easier for him, or has it been easier for him because of his good attitude?

He doesn't think they're related like that, not cause and effect, at any rate. He does think that my attitude (I freak out about weight gains, I get mad at TV commercials with food porn, I spend a lot of time wanting to bite someone's hand off...) makes things harder for me. That if I would relax a bit, it may take just as long, and it might be just as much work, but at least I wouldn't be so stressed about it.

(As a note, when I make the same suggestion about not stressing when it applies to his JOB... he's not so good...)

Honestly, I get a bit irate by the over-emphasis on "positive attitudes".

I mean, does anyone else feel like a freak show about this? Am I the only one who doesn't have a list of perky, pithy quotes stuck to my fridge? Who wants to shove "nothing tastes as good as being thin feels" down some obnoxious idiot's throat?

Hi, my name is Lynn.

I have a bad attitude and I've lost 85 pounds.

(Lost .2 pounds this week... well "at least it's not a gain...")

It Ain't Me, Babe

Go 'way from my window
Leave at your own chosen speed
I'm not the one you want, babe
I'm not the one you need

I got one of those emails yesterday.

I'm fairly sure every successful dieter has gotten at least one. And it's not just the emails... it's being out in public and mentioning to someone that I've lost substantial amounts of weight. Or at a family gathering with people I've not seen in a few years...

"What's your secret? How did you DO it?"

"Weight watchers... and exercise."

"oh." Mutters something about how they should start dieting and wander away...

I get really tempted to say things like, "Oh, I just gave myself a ground glass and vinegar enema three times a day for a week."

Just to see what people say.

Losing weight is work. It's not easy, it's not always pleasant and it can be damned frustrating.

You say you're lookin' for someone
Never weak but always strong,

Losing weight isn't about what plan you follow. It's not about carbs, or fat or antioxidants. (Honestly, I don't even really know what an antioxidant is...) It's not about never or always. It's not about a special pill or a magic food or in just three minutes a day.

It's about portion control. It's about balance. Planning. Moderation. And mostly, it's about time.

Portion control: You can eat any food you want. The higher in calories, fat, and sugar a food is, the less of it you can eat. Know what a portion is. In the beginning, that means measuring, weighing, and generally annoying yourself. Until you know what a portion should look like. And sometimes it means continuing to measure. I know a lot of people who "know" what a cup of something should look like, and over time, their "cup" runneth over. I'd say even after you have a really good handle on what you're doing, every six months or so (or more often, if you find your weight drifting or stalling out) you should go back to measuring for a week or so. Just to make sure.

Balance: Yes, while Weight Watchers "points" can be spent on any sort of food, you should balance out your diet. (I am personally NOT in favor of any diet plan that restricts a certain type of food, no matter what type that is... ) Fruits, vegetables, protien, dairy, grains, even sweets. I know there are people out there who are gasping in horror at the idea that I believe you should eat sweets. I know, and I've heard all the arguments against sugar, high fructose corn syrup, etc etc. And this is what I know; you don't get fat from eating too many tomatoes. And let's be realistic; if you are fat, you've probably been overindulging in high sugar, high fat foods. But I also believe that attempting to give these things up forever, for good, no more, never blacken my doorstop is not realistic. It is possible... and yet, it is possible that I will win the lottery. It is, however, not likely. And too many people throw up their hands in despair and quit when they can't get it 100% right. (That's a rant for another time, so I'll just bypass that today, shall I?) And in my opinion, even 57% right is good enough. Or certainly better than 100% wrong. Don't you?

Go lightly from the ledge, babe,
Go lightly on the ground.
I'm not the one you want, babe,
I will only let you down.

Planning: I believe planning is an essential part of any eating plan. I mean, it is an eating plan, isn't it? Thus, planning. Every week, I sit down and decide what dinners I'm going to cook; I don't necessarily decide I'm having tuna on Monday, chicken on Thursday and vegetable soup on Sunday, but I do plan out 6 or 7 "dinner meals". That way I know what to shop for. Planning means making allowances for days when you can't be 100% in control of what you eat and when. "Cookout at Dad's" means I need to do extra workouts, plan how much food I'm going to indulge in, practice what I'm going to say to food pushers.

Moderation: Take everything in moderation, even World of Warcraft.

You say you're lookin' for someone
Who will promise never to part,
Someone to close his eyes for you,
Someone to close his heart,
Someone who will die for you an' more,
But it ain't me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe,
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe.
- It Ain't Me Babe, Bob Dylan

I can't give people what they want. There is no magic pill, no special solution. It's hard work. It's learning yourself, learning your body. Learning what your triggers are. You have to make the decision to do it, and then do it.

And then keep doing it.

Even when you don't want to.

Especially when you don't want to.

(Had a good weigh in this week; I was down 1 pound. And I'm pretty certain that I've decided my goal weight is 131, which means I am only 2.4 pounds away from goal. Wooo!)

Final Four

Well, on the weight loss front, things aren't going so great. I gained last week, and this week's loss wasn't quite enough to even level the week's out, so I'm still at a .2 gain for the last two weeks.

Which, one would think, wouldn't be enough to piss me off. Except that if you've been reading here for any length of time, you know that it is.

I'm averaging a weight loss of about two and a half to three pounds a month. I mean, I know... I'm supposed to be happy because things are trending downward, and blah blah blah.

I keep waiting for the moment.

The moment where I realize how worth it this whole struggle has been... the moment where I notice how much more energy I have. The moment where I look in the mirror and don't recognize myself.

Fortunately, my continued efforts have nothing to do with that moment.

Because I haven't had it yet.

My getting up in the morning routine still includes a quick check in the mirror that says "Yep, still fat."

I don't look like I have less than ten pounds to lose. I look like I have a massive spare tire around my middle. If I could lose another thirty pounds I might look okay.

I guess I was thinking I might look pretty. At some point.

I mean, sometimes I have a moment, but it's not even a full moment. More like a micro-second in which I think Maybe I don't look entirely bad.

This, despite the fact that I just ordered new clothes. Again.

I don't have many clothes that fit. I have three pairs of shorts (two Smalls and a 5/6) and maybe a dozen t-shirts or tank tops that look good. I currently have no bras that actually fit (yes, I know, you can tell. I've been told. The next person who tells me I need a new bra better cough up $40 so I can buy a few, or shut up. Ok? Ok.) and only three pairs of undies that aren't waaaaay too big. I've undergrown my shoes again, so all my nice high heels that I bought (after going from a 9 to a 7.5, I really would have thought my damn feet were done shrinking!) have a half inch gap between my heel and the back of the shoe. Which is apparently very noticable in the various pictures I've taken recently, since everyone's pointed out how much I look like a little kid in Mommy's Dress Up Clothes.

I went into the Target and Old Navy the other day to try clothes on; see I have a $25 gift card for Old Navy, but it's only usable online. And I needed to know what my size was, since I don't want to order a 6 and need an 8.

Except, the shorts that fit? Are 4s.

Will someone please tell me; what the fuck heck is wrong with my brain that I cannot be happy with size fours?

Water Weight

So, to answer some questions: no, yes, too much, don't know yet, and thank you.

Seriously. My car is permanently disabled. Well, it's still running, but it's not fixable for less than $1,500 and for a car we only paid a grand for in the first place, it's not worth the investment, especially since the transmission isn't the only thing wrong with it. Thanks for all your concern and commentary. Our plan now is to run it into the ground and see how much money we have managed to save up by the time it goes kaput.

It must be nice, I think, to be in a job where you get paid just to diagnose a problem. Doctors get office visit fees, whether you end up treating the problem or not. Garages get fees for hooking up a computer and driving the car around the block. (I ended up shelling out well over $100 just to find out that the car's not worth fixing...) I give advice to a lot of people. I need to start charging for it, even if (especially if!) they don't follow it.

Sunday, I went for a distance building walk. Toby joined me again. Ug. I do like him, most of the time, but really, spending 7 hours of my weekend with him is starting to be a bit much. Also, he has a revolting habit of chewing with his mouth open, which makes lunch time a trial. Maybe I can find some way to tell him nicely next week that I'd prefer to walk on my own once in a while. I like having company, sometimes. It does make the walk go by faster, and at the same time, I don't want to "wimp out" in front of someone else. On the other hand, it seems like I never get to spend any time... alone. I'm either the go-to guru on food and diet; or I'm "wife" or "mommy" or the romance expert (I cannot tell you how many people come to me for dating/relationship advice... numbers that large don't make sense. I further cannot count the number of people who actually listen to me about it... numbers don't come that small.)

It was a nice enough day for a walk, and we walked most of the way to Leslie's house and then back. Leslie wasn't home, she had plans... So we stopped at the BP station about a mile from her house, had lunch, and then headed back. According to my pedometer, we walked 16.8 miles in about six and a half hours. That's not very speedy, honestly; about 2.5 miles an hour, but we did stop for breaks and...

Well, then it rained.

At first, the rain was nice; kinda light and scattered and cooling.

And then... it rained harder.

And harder.

I couldn't have been any more wet if you'd tossed me in a lake.

Water, by the way, is really, really heavy.

My shoes were completely soaked, enough so that it no longer was worth the effort to try and walk around the 3 inch deep puddles. Water poured through my baseball cap, down the back of my neck, and into my shirt. It was raining so hard, literally, I couldn't see more than fifty feet in front of us (and only that far until my glasses started fogging up... after that, I could barely see at all...).

We walked the last two miles in that downpour.

And soaking wet clothes are really heavy. Between pushing through puddles and how sticky I became (well, the legs of my shorts were drenched and they rubbed together and wow, that slowed me down a lot...) we lost a great deal of ground.

Just as we were getting to my apartment, it stopped raining.

Typical.

"Well, at least it stopped," Toby said.

"Yeah, so instead of looking like troopers," I rolled my eyes, "we just look stupid."

As a note, my weigh in was the suck this week. After losing 4 pounds last week, I was back up .6 this week. My weight loss for this year is the suck. I have ~8.4 pounds left to lose, and at the rate I'm losing, it's going to be 2010 before I'm not paying for meetings anymore.

Sigh.

(And yes, while you're wondering, Thomas lost another 2 pounds this week. Yes, by all means, kill him.)

Burning through my Good Karma

Well, this week has barely started and already I'm neck deep in "owing someone a favor."

See, this is the thing... my car is not being happy with the world. Sometimes it doesn't shift. Not all the time, just sometimes. (It's an automatic, not a stick...) The tach thing will rev up and up and nada. No shifting. Now, sometimes when this happens, it'll sort itself out in a few minutes, and sometimes it has to be manually downshifted, and it'll sort itself out, and sometimes you have to turn the car off and back on and it'll be fine. Until it happens the next time.

Now, I took the car up to the Firestone yesterday (and got a ride back to my house from Leslie...) and this morning they called to say they have no clue, couldn't find the problem, but here's another $350 worth of maintenance they recommend we do to the car in the meanwhile.

"Will that fix my problem?" I ask.

"Um, we couldn't find your problem, so I don't know." This is mechanic-speak for "No, it won't. But we'll get more money out of you!"

So, now I have to go get the car, pay them $75 for being annoying and unhelpful, and then take the car down the street to a transmission-specific shop and pay them another $75 to see if they can make heads or tails out of the issue.

Now, on the plus side, the new guy says it sounds like the sensor to him (based on my description) because if it was the actual transmission, it wouldn't be an intermittant problem... but he's not sure and he still needs to do diagnostics on it...

However, we only have one car, so an additional problem is, when there's a mechanical issue, getting from hither to yon is... a real pain in the ass.

Last week, we took the car in for inspection; or more exactly, I did. And I walked out to get the car the next day...

This week, we've had to bum rides from Leslie and Toby... and I had to get Leslie to cart me around yesterday to get this problem taken care of with our bedsheets. (Which is to say, I accidentally bought the wrong sized pillow cases. Standard pillow cases do not fit on King Sized pillows... ) And then there was an issue because I accidentally left my credit card in my other bag, so we had to go back to my place, pick up the card, then back to the store... what a pain...

Thomas is going to have to walk to work tomorrow, since it's unlikely that we'll get the car back today.

Tomorrow or Thursday (if we don't have the car back by then) I'm going to need to bother one of them for a ride to the grocery store. How exciting. Just what I want to do, my grocery shopping while someone else waits around for me.

95% of the time, I don't care that we only have one car.

This... is the other 5%.

Regardless, I'm sure you all didn't come here to listen to me whine about my car trouble.

Yesterday, I was very stressed out (today, I'm still stressed, but there's a limit to how long I can carry around incredible stressyness, so right now I'm in the "sort of resigned" phase of it...) and when I get really stressed out, I tend to scratch my legs. Don't ask me why, it's just a nervous thing. But since I don't really want big gaping holes in my skin, I decided I'd wear a pair of tights, so that I could keep myself from doing too much damage.

So I put together an outfit that I thought looked okay with tights.

And it really, really did.

I think I looked intensely cute yesterday.

And... those pesky 2.6 pounds that showed up last week decided to go away again. And they took with them another 1.4 pounds as insurance.

So, I ended up with a 4 pound loss yesterday, which moves me over 80 pounds total lost. (81.2 pounds lost, to be exact, but who's counting? Oh, right. I am.)

Big Fat Zero

Well....

This weekend there was a "software" update at Weight Watchers. My leader and receptionists were busy trying to get their computers to actually work... and they weren't working particularly well.

I don't know if this botched up the calibration of the scales or not.

However, last week, the Wii Fit said I was up over the week; not much, just .2, and my losses at my official weigh in ended up being -1.4 pounds. This week, the Fit said I was down 1.4 pounds from last week, and my official weigh in was up 2.6 pounds.

Combined with my gains and losses, that adds up to a big fat zero loss for the last month.

And yes, before my faithful readers plaster the comments: water weight, salt, time of the month, too much exercise (I did walk almost 13 miles on Sunday), I'm sunburned, I didn't overeat but might have undereaten again. I know. Believe me, I'm 18 months into this weight loss journey, and I do know all the various psuedo-reasons that I had an unexpected gain. Plateau... etc. Yep, check check check.

I really, really need a vacation. I'm so tired of everything. I'm tired of my housework; I'm tired of my husband; I'm tired of my child. I'm tired of listening to my friends and their complaints about the stupid places they work. (Silver lining; three of them work at the same place and while I get to hear the same complaints three times in a row, I don't have to try to keep track of more than one set of stupid office policies...)

And after spending a good deal of time yesterday trying to get my points tracker lined up for 19 points, I'm NOT going to change it back to 20.

Sacrifice

You know, October looks a lot closer from the end of April than it did from February...

I feel like I'm not training hard enough. The "suggested walking" schedule that the 3Day sends out has got me walking 4 times a week, plus a day of "cross training." I missed two weeks of walking because of illness and cut one week of walking short in order to bring home a hatchling turtle.

And yet, at the same time, I'm starting to really resent the time this is taking. I spend all day Sunday on the road, or recovering from the walk. (getting sunburned two weeks in a row really isn't making me very happy... it's my own fault, I know that, but at the same time, it's still really exasperating.)

Technically, according to the training schedule, I should be walking both Saturday and Sunday, because the really important thing will not be that I can walk 20 miles one day, but that I can walk 20 miles three days in a row...

I don't want to give up my whole weekend. I don't feel like I have enough time with my husband as it is. And I don't have anyone to sit with my kid for six hours on Monday... and now Thomas is thinking about training to run a 5K with his friend at work, and that'll just be more time that we're not home and not together.

Not to mention the fact that I'm not planning well for meals.

I'm so freaking hungry by the time Sunday evening rolls around.

And it doesn't seem to matter that I save my weekly points for Sunday (and my activity points.) I haven't yet - in the 16 months or so that I've been on Weight Watchers - ever, actually exceeded all my points...) I can lose weight all week, and then Monday rolls around...

The wii fit says I'm up 1.8 pounds from yesterday.

Yesterday I ate a salad from Subway, a clif bar, some popcorn, and 3 pieces of pizza.

Why this caused me to puff up like some sort of freak of nature, I just don't get it. I walked eleven flipping miles yesterday in 90 degree heat.

Also, I'm not even halfway through raising the $2,300 I need to be able to enter the walk in the first place. I really need to get my act together, because otherwise, all the sacrifice of my time, energy and honestly, to the detriment of my weight loss, will have been for nothing, and of course, the Charity will take my doner's money and say "Oh, too bad..."

And the worst thing about it?

I felt *really* good yesterday.

Slip Sliding

Ok... officially, I'm blaming my best friend Leslie's soon-to-be-ex husband.

The chain of events;

Stupid Ex racks up credit card debt, lies, uses the company truck to hide and fall asleep at work and exhibits other assorted immature behavior.

Leslie decides that Stupid Ex is a waste of time and space (I don't disagree here) and asks for a divorce.

Stupid Ex moves back in with his parents. He also requests that Leslie give over his things (acceptable, I suppose...)

Leslie, moving some furniture around in order to get his stuff out of the house, drags a recliner over her foot, tearing her toenail off at the root.

She calls my husband for advice.

Thomas advices that she wait there and we'll come pick her up to take her to see a doctor.

We go to the Urgent Care (not very urgent, takes us three hours for her to get seen and treated.) While there, we are shut in a smallish waiting room with an older woman and her booming cough.

Two days later, I start coughing.

My asthma flares up but good. (I don't know if you recall, but about eight months ago, I was declared "perfectly healthy" by my doctor and taken off my long-term asthma medications...) Unfortunately, my asthma has slowly come back. For a few months, I wasn't using the albuterol at all, and then I started using it from time to time, especially after I did any intense cardio.

Over the last two months, it's gotten steadily worse. I was using the inhaler at least once a day, and three to four times a day if I did cardio.

Last week, I've been using it three to eight times a day, cardio or not.

And Tuesday, I about collapsed on the elliptical after 11 minutes.

So, I finally gave up and called my doctor.

I'm back on the Proventil and Serevent.

And he wanted me to go on a week's run of steroids.

And here's where I'm conflicted. As I've said before, my primary weight gain started with a few runs of prednizone back in college.

I really, really don't want to go back on steroids.

On the other hand, I've said enough as far as fucking around following my doctor's orders go. I've promised myself I'll stop being in denial about my health and actually take care of problems.

And yet... I don't want to undo the last several months of hard work by going on steroids for a week and gaining back 30 pounds. Or, if I don't gain, being unspeakably hungry for several weeks. (I remember clearly being on steroids... I was hungry all the time. Bone-gnawing, stomach twistingly hungry. And it didn't stop, no matter how much food I stuffed down my throat.)

God, please, I don't want to go back there.

I have a doctor's appointment in two weeks.

So, this is what I've decided to do; I'm going back on the long-acting inhalers for a week, and if that doesn't significantly clear up, then (and only then) will I take the week's worth of steroids.

I know my doctor wants to knock this out; and I know that he really has my best interests in mind. Lung infections are nothing to mess around with, and he's being concervative. Knock this out of my system before it can settle in and make more problems for me, long term.

And yet... why throw three things at the problem when two (or one) will fix it?

So, I'm being a little bit risky, perhaps. But I'm monitoring myself, and if I have to go back on steroids, I will.

But if I do, expect to hear me bitching. A lot.

75 pounds (Time Keeps on Ticking...)

Last night I inched over another 5 pound marker.

They're getting further and further apart as my weight loss has become this epic crawl... and it was never all that speedy to begin with. (I know, I know, safe weight loss is no more than 2 pounds a week, but hey, there's a big space in between .5 pounds a week and 2 pounds a week and I wouldn't mind sticking my weight loss averages into a slightly closer to maybe getting this done sometime this century...) Seriously; it took me eight weeks to lose five pounds... at that rate, it's going to take me twenty weeks to lose this last 13.6 pounds. So, look for me hitting my goal... oh, in September...

Ah well... it's not like I have anything better to do. Or that it's going to be over, once I reach goal weight... I'm never going to be able to eat six doughnuts and lose a pound anyway, like my husband does. So I may as well just get used to the idea that I will always have to guard myself carefully and watch everything I eat. For the rest of my life.

God, that's depressing.

I'm not meaning to be. It's actually been a pretty good week; Thomas finally got a promotion at work which came with an actual pay raise and no additional responsibilities. (That would be different from some of his previous promotions which involved a cut in take-home pay and significantly more responsibilities. I'm perfectly serious; when he moved from hourly to salary, he got a 10% pay raise, but by adding unpaid overtime and losing the double-pay for holidays, it resulted in a 3% net loss in our spending cash...)

I've just been sick for the last week and unable to hit the gym at all... Working out with a head cold is one thing, working out with an upper respiratory infection is something else entirely. I get really tired walking across the room, or coughing, or honestly much of anything. And the scary thing is, I remember when I felt like that all the time (minus the coughing... but seriously, I remember cleaning the living room in two foot chunks because bending over to pick up Darcy's toys made me tired.)...

I don't like it much.

It was Thomas's birthday and we had some fun; a smallish birthday party and then we went dancing up with some friends - which is to say, mostly we sat on barstools and listened to music. I managed to drag Thomas out onto the floor for one song, which is the first time he's danced with me in... three years. I think the last time was at my cousin's wedding. So, you know, I'm now set up with dancing until 2012.

Dreaded Question

Of the five questions men most hate to hear (loosely based on a this article...) I probably ask my husband "What are you thinking?" and "Do you love me?" on a fairly regular basis.

He's a pretty typical guy, except for the fact that "Football" would never be an answer to "What are you thinking?" For Thomas, it runs more along the lines of "Stupid work stuff/stupid raid stuff/random observations about science fiction television/theoretical physics..."

I don't usually ask anyone the question "Do I look fat in this?"

The closest I usually get to the question is "Do I look OK?" By OK, I generally mean "Does this cover all the requisite bits of me, is it formal or informal enough for the event, is my fly open, and do I need to comb my hair again?"

I have always known the answer to "Do these jeans make me look fat?"

"Honey, it's not the jeans."

Wince.

Just because I knew it didn't mean I ever wanted to hear it from someone. I already knew I was fat. I didn't particularly have a need to make someone I liked repeat it for me.

The problem is, I think my eyes are broken. I know I've talked about this before, but it seems to be a real problem for me, and I can't get my brain aligned.

Thomas talks about his mental woah moments... "I walk by a store window and I have to stop and stare at that skinny guy in the reflection."

I still walk past reflective store windows with my eyes downcast.

I've had woah moments, don't get me wrong. The first time Thomas and I passed each other in the hallway without one or both of us unconsciously turning sideways to allow us both to fit though... when I noticed the car steering wheel didn't need to be adjusted to allow me to fit behind the wheel... but they've never had anything to do with pictures, or reflections.

I'm ok, if I can compare myself to a space I didn't used to be able to occupy, or comparing my required Fat Girl pants to my current pants (I think it's mandatory, by law, that you have to save something from your Fat Days... mine are a pair of red capris, size 24) or looking down while I'm folding laundry and thinking "I fit in that shirt??"

But as soon as I see myself in the mirror, or a picture, I'm like "God, I look like a freaking beached whale!"

I really do think my brain is broken. I mean, I'm wearing size 7 jeans, and they're too big for me. (I should have gotten the 6s.) So, just recently, I've started asking a few, select people that question.

I'm still not getting answers that I'm happy with.

"You look thin-er."

Which is to say, you were such a disgusting pork before, and now you're slightly smaller than a freight train... but it's progress, right?

"Well, I don't know, really. I mean, your body type is so different from mine..."

I thought that was a really interesting way to avoid answering me with "No, actually, you do look fat."

I'm honestly getting a bit tired of this whole lifestyle change thing... My average weight loss for this year has been dropping steadily... it took me a year to lose 65 pounds, and it's going to take at least another whole year to get rid of 20 pounds. Somehow, that just doesn't seem fair.

The last twenty pounds is the hardest.

Unless, of course, you're my skinny-ass husband who had his last 20 pounds drop off in a whopping 4 weeks, and then lost another 12 pounds while he was at it.

Bastard.

Do Over (and over, and over...)

For those of you who have asked; family stuff is... well, going. I've had some constructive conversations with one cousin, and some less constructive conversations with another. I was (and continue to be) rather astonished by how much I care about this, honestly. Anyway, the beginning of the week was emotionally draining and I thank everyone for their support.

Last week, my babysitter (he comes over once a week, on Friday, and is generally asked to watch Darcy for about ninety minutes to two hours... and he often stays about an hour after that, which occasionally bothers me because really, I'm sweaty and icky after the gym and I'd like to go take a shower now please...) told me that he was going out of town Friday morning, and he couldn't make it this week.

I asked if it was possible to change days, and he said he definitely could come on Wednesday or he might be able to make it Thursday morning. I did some thinking and said Thursday would work better for me, because otherwise that meant I was doing back-to-back workouts (Tuesday and Wednesday) and then skipping 3 days before I could get back to the gym, which just didn't seem like it would be a good plan to me.

He said, "I'll call you and let you know, but I should be able to come Thursday around 10am."

(Well, he's not a great babysitter, and he's not always reliable, and I have - on more than one occasion - come home to find him sleeping on my sofa and been grateful that Darcy's not generally the type of kid who shaves the cat, writes on the wall with Sharpies or otherwise is destructive. But he is cheap. And since he doesn't really have another job - sometimes he substitute teaches and from time to time he does some tour-guide stuff - he's usually available.)

Thursday morning rolls around, but I haven't heard from him. At 10:15, I call.

"Oh, right. Yeah... well, I'm still a little behind on my homework for class tonight, so no, I can't."

"Oh."

I ponder for a bit, then give another friend a call. Her job lets her out around 3-ish, and could she come over, maybe, and I could get a work-out in before Thomas gets home? I leave a message on her phone.

I decide to take the better part of my currently open time and do a Wiirkout. I start with the aerobic stuff and do a couple sessions of hula hoop, some step, some advanced step, some jogging in place (which for some reason seems to be easier to me than jogging/running on the treadmill... not sure why...) and some free step (most boring exercising evah!). When I finish with that, I've been wiirking out for 33 minutes and I'm dripping sweat. I take a few minutes of a breather, then start doing Yoga. Halfway through my yoga, my friend calls back. Sure, she'd be happy to watch Darcy for a little while!

Great!

I decide to go ahead and finish my wiirkout, just so I get my cooldown in and don't get stretched all funny by doing some upper body work but no lower body work. When I call it quits, I've logged up over an hour.

About mid-afternoon, Darcy decided she really, really wanted to go outside, so outside we went. I grabbed the flyers I made up for my 3 Day Walk and we went around the block tacking them to doors. Up and down several flights of stairs - and hey, when did the building across the street from me CATCH ON FIRE? half the units are marked as uninhabitable. You'd think I might have noticed that when it HAPPENED!

Then my friend showed up, so I changed clothes and hit the gym for about an hour... 45 minutes on the treadmill, some chair dips and table dips...

When I got home, Thomas had gotten back from work. The weather was unusually nice - given that it's been flipping freezing for several weeks now - so we decided to go for our "short" walk, which is the 2.2 miler...

65 minutes on the Wii, 30 minutes walking around the neighborhood hanging up flyers, 45 minutes on the treadmill, 10 minutes stretching, 15 minutes walking back and forth TO the gym, 40 minutes on our walk... we were an hour into our Naxx speed-run last night when I started getting muscle cramps and shivers.

Oh, I hurt.

Eight is Enough

Aside from my wedding dress (in which I looked liked a silk and seed-pearl wrapped marshmallow) I have never owned clothing more expensive than the stuff I am wearing today.

I am wearing a teal blue silk overshirt ($59.99), a nude cami top ($19.50), and skinny-leg pair of Mia jeans ($69.50) with a pair of black wingtip-style heels ($29.95). I'm also wearing a belt ($12.99). It's not a belt I have any need for, mind you. My jeans are new, and a size 8. There's no way I need a belt to hold my pants up. I'm wearing a tiny, patent leather belt around my shirt. As a decoration.

I am wearing a $200 outfit.

I didn't even spend that much money on a prom dress. (In high school, I was required to buy my own prom dresses out of a $15 a week allowance that also had to cover my school lunches, books, and outtings. I hit the sale racks for prom dresses... I think I spent a grand total of $25 for my senior prom gown.)

Last year, I wouldn't even have looked at a silk shirt. I used to sweat, constantly, even in air-conditioned rooms when I wasn't doing anything. A silk shirt would have been a waste of money. Not to mention the fact that I don't think they make silk shirts in an XXXL.

My ass is crammed into a pair of skinny-legged, $70 jeans. Sized 8. You know, two weeks ago when I got my first pair of 8's, I was... trying to talk myself down of them, you know. Oh, well, of course it's a size 8. I got them at TJ Maxx, and you know, that's a discount store, so regardless of what the tag says, they're probably not a size 8. And you know, they're a relaxed fit.

But these are size 8 from Express. Express. Which carries size 0. Where the sales-staff are all no larger than 4s. Who talk about "Oh, well, these sweaters are sized a little small. I mean, usually I wear an XS, but for this cardigan, I needed a small...." (I shit you not, my favorite sales girl said that two weeks ago when I bought a lovely paint-splatter patterned sweater in a Large... there are realms left in the skinny fashion industry in which I daresay I will never be more than a casual explorer. If nothing else, I still have boobs.)

And what, you might ask, am I doing in a $200 outfit?

I've been asking myself the same question.

I have. No. Earthly. Clue.

Sometimes I think I have a weird sort of reverse fat-girl vision. I know a lot of women have problems realizing just how big they've gotten. I remember talking with a friend back when she started Weight Watchers and she said to me, "I used to comfort myself with this idea; that at least I wasn't a hundred pounds overweight. And then I got on the scale." Turns out, when she wasn't paying attention, she had gotten to that arbitrary line of what was acceptable and what wasn't. (For her. Those lines are different for everyone.)

I have the opposite problem.

I can't see myself as thin. Or even normal. I still look in the mirror and see fat expanding in all directions.

I keep trying to find excuses about why I should be able to fit into a size 8 pair of pants. (See my above rationalization about the pair I got at TJ Maxx...)

I've lost 70 pounds. I'm (according to the Wii Fit; which has become my cross to bear, and yes, I still jump on the damn thing every morning.. and I might add, I had a discussion with Thomas yesterday about how much 20oz of water weighs, and could I legitimately blame that on a 1 pound weight gain? The answer to that is, YES. A 20 ounce bottle of water weighs ~1.3 POUNDS. So if I drank a whole 20oz bottle right before jumping on the scale, yes, the scale's going to pick that up...) about 5 pounds away from being a normal weight for my height. (On the high edge of normal, admittedly, but a BMI of 25 is "normal". The Wii says I weighed 146 this morning. To get to a BMI of 25, I need to weigh 141.)

I keep waiting for that lightbulb moment...

Really... you'd think eight would be enough.

Ear-itating

Well, it's really not been a fantastic week here...

It seemed to start out all right with us finally tracking down and purchasing a Wii and a Wii fit. Astonishingly enough, after running to every computer store and Game Stop in town (and oddly enough, there are a LOT of them) (as a side, side note, Best Buy was in the Completely Not Helpful or Polite list of stores... which sort of sucks since we'd JUST added them back into places we shopped after being completely turned off by their weird ass "we have preferred customers of which YOU are not part of the list" policies, but you know, hey, Circuit City is going out of business, if Best Buy wants to join them in the Alliterative Antiquated Appliance Areas that's just FINE with me!) we finally found one at the Toys R Us. The people there were helpful, kind, polite, and enthusiastic about our purchase, so they may be seeing us again to get our various accessories and stuff... (Customer Service people! It's a good thing!)

Monday, my weigh in was good; I lost .4 pounds, which usually does not please me immensely, but as it snuck me over the 70 pounds lost, I was happy. (There was also something nice, when working out, the Bike and Treadmill ask me things like Time, Weight and Age, and I was able to push the down arrow from the default weight - which is 150 - for the first time...)

Tuesday was somewhat annoying; I've fallen victim to something I knew was going to happen. The Wii Fit acts as a scale, in addition to letting me do light workouts on it, and I've started weighing in every day... now, from Sunday to Tuesday, I apparently gained at least 1 pound every day. (No, I'm pretty sure that this isn't a problem with the scale itself, as Thomas has continued to either lose or maintain his weight...) Also, Thomas usually works from home on Tuesday, so I can hit the gym... but he had several meetings he couldn't miss, so he had to go in. Blech. Which means I didn't hit the gym. My babysitter couldn't come over on Tuesday... he was supposed to come on Wednesday, but...

Wednesday I woke up at 3am from a dream of talking to someone who was deaf to realize that I had an incredible pain in my head. My ear felt like someone had put a railroad spike through it. Also, I could hear all this swishy liquid noises. I took some pain medication and went back to sleep, hoping it would go away.

It didn't. In fact, when I got up on Wednesday morning, I felt worse. My head ached acutely and I was alternating hot and cold. On top of everything else, I ended up getting vomitously ill. (Sick is falling asleep on the bathroom floor. Flylady is waking up to realize that the bathroom floor is actually really clean.) So I called my babysitter and told him not to bother to come over on Wednesday, that I was sick, and I'd let him know...

I spent all day feeling ill and sorry for myself.

Thursday, according to the Wii, I had actually gained weight.

I swear, I must be the only person on the planet that this happens to... everyone else I know gets a stomach bug and loses 6+ pounds. Hell, Thomas gets the freaking sniffles and loses 4 pounds. It is decidedly unfair.

So, according to the Wii Fit, I am up 2.4 pounds since Monday's weigh in.

BLECH.

Now, since I spent all day Wednesday feeling sick, and even though I wasn't feeling completely top-notch yesterday, I had all of Wednesdays' chores to do, plus yesterdays. And Thomas, while he'd taken his work-from-home day yesterday, was No Help at All (charter member). So I ended up running all the errands and the grocery shopping by myself yesterday (we usually do the grocery shopping together!) and nearly getting into two seperate car accidents and just generally hating the world. And everyone in it.

And, of course, the Wii Fit tells me I've gained another .4 pounds today.

Just shoot me in the head. Right here. I won't move. Promise.

Health

I found myself having an unexpected conniption fit the other day.

I was talking with a friend about how much better I felt these days. I feel strong, doing push ups. I feel enduring, being able to run or walk or bike for half an hour. My skin feels more supple, looks clearer, is silky to the touch. I can breathe. I can run. I can walk up and down several flights of stairs.

"Guess it's true, what they say," she says. "If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything."

Cue explosion. Mt. Saint Lynn is blowing her top. Better evacuate.

Obviously, I'm better now, but I've been sick. And not like "oh, I have a cold," sick, but "I am going to die from this" sick.

Go ahead, look up COPD. I'll wait.

Sick. Every day of my life, for the better part of the years between 1992 and 2003. Eleven years. Eleven years where I spent a lot of time in emergency rooms. Wracked up tens of thousands of dollars of hospital bills. Ended up in ICU a few times. One time was so bad, we were pretty convinced that I was never going home again.

I learned not to laugh, because laughing could trigger a bad spell. I barely exercised, if I could possibly manage to avoid it. Cleaning my house was a major exertion, and tended to stir up dust that just aggravated my condition.

I was mildly terrified, all the time. I couldn't be more than 10 feet away from my inhaler or I got nervous, and when I got nervous, my breathing got worse. (As a note, an inhaler is supposed to contain enough doses to last for a month. I rarely lasted ten days before I needed a new one.)

And yet... in all that time; I had good friends. I got married. I had a life. I wrote two novels.

In 2002, I met a man who saved my life. My pulminologist. He took me and my disease seriously. He helped me control it, instead of it controlling me. And he didn't just treat me as an extension of my disease. He treated all parts of my life; everything from job and marriage-related stress to supporting my weight loss efforts to minimizing environmental effects.

I'm better. Healthy. My lung capacity is normal.

Yes, I still have an inhaler, and unfortunately, I still use it (generally when I'm working out) but he believes that will get better in time.

And yet, I still remember, acutely, what being seriously ill is like.

Yes, being ill takes a lot of time. Yes, being ill colors every part of your life.

But it wasn't nothing.

And damn, I hate it when people act like everything that happened during that period was worthless. Because I wasn't healthy.

Yeah, bite me.

(And just for your viewing pleasure, here's one of the best pictures of me I've seen in a long time... Yes, I know it's the back of my head, but still... I really like it.)

Would you like some Cheese with that Whine?

Sometimes, people explain too much.

Recently, I was having a conversation with my step-mom about something completely unrelated to weight-loss. I had my hair pinned up in a Chinese braid (which has become my favorite way to wear my hair... it looks sophisticated and complicated and takes me a whopping three minutes to do...) and was looking out the window while we were chatting. (My dad and step-mom have about 30 bird feeders in their yard, so there's always a flock of avian leeches hanging around their backyard.)

"You know," she interrupts me to say, "I was just noticing, with your hair up like that, in profile, now that you've lost all that weight... you're really sort-of pretty."

Wow, I thought. Did she really need to qualify her compliment that much? Not that I object to being called pretty... and not that I don't qualify everything I think about myself... but my goodness... so, I have to be thin, with my hair up, and turned to the side to be sort-of pretty? And what does "really sort of" mean? Really sort of pretty? Really, only sort of pretty? Sort of really pretty?

Advice: If you're giving me a compliment, please don't qualify it. (Trust me... I will qualify, disbelieve, and worry over the compliment enough as it is...)

(Not that I think Rosie meant to get me all in a dither... but by the time she said it, I'd spent the last two days being raved over by my assorted not-quite-relatives about how good I looked, and I was starting to feel a little... weird about it. Like, I look so great now, which correlates nicely to how TERRIBLE I must have looked before! I found myself, after about sixty of these comments, really wanting someone to say something like "My goodness, Lynn, you're just so smart!" Something. Please, god, people. I know I lost a lot of weight, but being thin is NOT the only good thing about me, I promise. At least some of the "spotlight" got swiped by my cousin's wife, who's finally pregnant - finally? she's only been married for like 18 months - and everyone got sidetracked in talking about that instead. Which was fine with me. Being fussed over that much was a little... awkward.)

We went to weigh in last night, and once again, Thomas shows me up. I wish I could get over this, but it frustrates me so much... He's on maintenance, and because he's a guy, he gets 8 more points a day over me anyway, so that's 12 points he gets, then 17 for his weight, then three or four for his height, and another two for his age... some 35 points to my 21. Last week he ate (that I saw) three cupcakes from the deli (the kind with the two inch layer of frosting that looks like a dinosaur on them!) all of his dinner at the "would you like a side order of cheese with your cheese?" restaurant, and half a piece of chocolate cake... and he lost 2.4 pounds.... I worked my ass off at the gym three times last week for about 90 minutes a session, abstained from the cupcakes, and only ate half my dinner when we went out... to lose 1.4. It's just. Not. Fair.

Thomas weighs less than 20 pounds more than I do. Without putting much effort into it, he's kicking my ass on the stationary bike, he lifts more, he does more push ups... he eats more and he's losing more weight. He looks like 10 times better than I do... I'm only 11 pounds from being classified as "normal weight" according to the BMI charts and yet I still look like a fat, middle-aged housewife (the more frustrating part about this is that I am a fat, middle-aged housewife...) Because he works and I stay home, we have to keep on top of his wardrobe, because he cannot look like a rag-bag at work. He works with client teams and customers, and he needs to look well-groomed and put together. I'm a mother. As soon as anyone sees a young child with me, they immediately file me in the "walmart shopper" catagory and it doesn't really matter what I'm wearing, no one cares. So, his clothes fit and mine... not so much. He looks nice and I... don't.

And I know that it's not his fault, and that, actually, he's trying to maintain his weight, and he's having a lot of trouble finding the good balance between wanting to be fit and what he can eat, and I positively refuse to cook two different meals in order to put full fat cheese and meats into his dinner. Not to mention, I don't want Little Debbie cakes in the house. I don't want to put my weight loss in jepordy because he can't be bothered to eat breakfast.

On the other hand, if I'm not mad at him about it, the only other person that I can legitimately be mad at is myself.

And believe me, I am. I'm mad that I must not be working hard enough, that I could do better. And at the same time, I know I'm being completely ridiculous and unbearable and insufferable. I know that weight loss is not Zero-sum DKP, that Thomas losing weight doesn't mean that I'm not also losing weight. I also know that I'm not being a good partner because I'm constantly harping on this theme of "why do you always have to show me up?"

And yet... while I know... I just can't help but be disappointed.