A Dumbbell In A Home Gym

Are We There Yet?

Stop me if you've heard this one:

"How to figure out your ideal weight: A five-foot woman should weigh 100 pounds, so add five pounds for every subsequent inch, and maybe five more if you have a large frame."

Does anyone know where this formula came from, and if it has even the remotest scientific validity? (And really now, is anyone not going to claim that they have a large frame?) I see it repeated everywhere. It seems forbiddingly low to me, but maybe that's because I'm in a society where so many people are so overweight that "normal" is being redefined upward. I don't know.

According to that formula I should weigh 125 pounds at the most, and even at my goal weight of 135 I'd be overweight. And at my current weight of 168, I must be a heart attack waiting to happen. No, I am not exactly streaking cometlike to that "In the Thirties by 39" goal; at the rate I'm going, "In the Fifties by 50" might be a stretch. I know that I need to cut the calories and ramp up the exercise if I want to reach that goal; I just haven't been able to do this on a consistent basis, and part of the problem is that I'm tired of it. Tired of watching my calories; tired of feeling guilty if I want to spend an evening quietly rather than working out; tired of thinking of my weight every damn day.

It's causing a lot of dissonance. I'm not unhappy with where I am now. I could be thinner, yes, but after being Extra-Value sized for so long, I'm reasonably content with being on the high end of average. I like how I look in pictures (well, usually). Most days I feel fit and strong. My blood pressure and heart rate are good. Fitting into "regular" clothes hasn't been an issue for a long time.

The day after my Old Navy trip, I took a trip to Hecht's-which-is-now-Macy's. And I tried on a few more Smalls that fit me fairly well. I almost bought a $99 size S skirt before sanity and financial responsibility prevailed and I asked myself what, exactly, I was trying to prove.

But somehow, I've gotten the idea that where I'm at still isn't good enough. The BMI charts and that odd formula would say I'm way too heavy. Do I listen to that, or do I let my body decide where I'm meant to be?

And while I fixate on the sacred 135, I sometimes forget that the last time I was at that weight, I got there because I engaged in a whole series of unhealthful habits; it started with starvation and smoking as an appetite suppressant and went downhill. And that goes double for when I was at 120, the weight I'm "supposed" to be. (And by that point, people were yapping at me that I was too thin, hard as it is to believe.) Undoing the physical damage to my body from that regimen took years. Undoing the mental damage ... well, I'm not even sure that's a past-tense thing.

I suspect I'm also at something of a loss because I cannot remember a time when I was exercising regularly and eating reasonable portion sizes as a matter of course (yeah, boo to the bad pun). In terms of weight I've always been either on the way up or on the way down. Maintenance is the one trick I've never mastered. I just plain don't know what I'm meant to weigh when I'm neither attempting to lose weight nor mindlessly gaining.

Maybe it's 168. That number only seems unreasonable if I start comparing it to the "You should weigh 120" formula or the BMI that puts me at around 135.

It's a tough call. It's something else for me to mull over.

Many of us talk about this whole weight loss thing being a journey. How do you know when you're there?

Two Years: Sequelitis.

A side note: I thought for sure that the first commercial to annoy me this year would be one of those "Kamikaze New Year Weight Loss" ads, but nope: I just saw a Burger King commercial telling the viewer to "Eat like a MAN," where eating like a MAN means eating triple-decker crapburgers with cheese. Barf. I know this isn't a new advertising trend by any means, but this is the first time I've seen that particular ad. Oh dear ... my husband doesn't eat like a MAN. But the good news is that I might get to have him around a little longer because of his preference for unmanly fare like beans and fruit and nuts and tofu. I can live with that. I bet he can too.

Anyhow.

You know how it's almost a given that the second movie in a series is never as good as the first one? Doesn't it seem that for every "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," there are about 10 "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Dooms"?

That's kind of how it was with my second year of lifestyle change. (I was feeling a lot cheerier after my first year.)

Okay: This year was not a failure by any means. Far from it. I lost more weight, and my husband and I continued to seek out new and different ways to exercise. I rediscovered swimming, which added a lot of joy to my summer. We joined a rec center. I regained about four pounds at the end of the year, but this is hardly a tragedy.

But there's no denying that I started to derail around midyear. Word to the wise: No matter how much weight you lose, never, ever assume that you've got this weight loss shit figured out for all time. It's much easier to backslide than I ever would have believed.

This year I learned some unpleasant lessons. I learned firsthand that the closer you get to a weight goal, the harder you're going to have to work to get there. This still seems profoundly unfair, somehow. I was dimly aware of this little wrinkle, but perhaps in my smugness I believed it wouldn't be a problem for me. Like I'd get extra credit because I'd lost so much already. Nope. It's an awful feeling, especially when you've been at this for a while and tend to think "UGH -- I'm so tired of this!" in your darker moments.

I also found out that the "small changes" theory of weight loss can work in reverse. Giving myself an extra night off from exercise; getting a grande instead of my usual tall skim mocha; treating myself to junk food (even the baked kind) in the afternoons ... it really is that easy to start backsliding no matter how firmly entrenched you think your new habits have become. I still don't believe in cutting out all "bad" food for all time; that's not a life I'm interested in, thanks. But there's a very fine line between "occasional treat" and "habit", and last year I spent a little too much time on the wrong side of that line.

But you know what? "Last year" is just that. "Last." 2006 is over. What matters is what's ahead of me and what I do in the new year. The good news is that I didn't put on any additional weight over December. Being mindful of my "In the Thirties by 39" challenge kept me balancing my meals and moving my body just enough to stave off tightening waistbands. And now I'd like to get the scale moving down again. I'm ready.

So let's hope that Year Three is more of an "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," and less of a "Godfather Three."

Visibility Revisited.

So I closed out July at a steady 168 pounds. At last. Now let's see if I can get to the 50s somewhat more quickly.

I talked about this last year, and lately it's been coming to mind again: Visibility.

I'm sitting on a bench in the Metro station, glad that the day is over and thinking deep thoughts like "Do I have enough clean underwear to make it through the week or is tonight a laundry night?" And then I glance up just as a passing man looks me dead in the eye and smiles at me. I smile back but immediately feel weird and exposed and silly, and then I stare down at my lap until he's out of sight. Boy. I used to be much better at the whole "Catch a cute stranger's eye and smile" sort of thing.

I run into someone I haven't seen in a long time, someone who's never laid a finger on me that I can remember. Someone who only knew me after I got really fat. He doesn't mention my weight loss, but I see the expression on his face when he first catches sight of me: he's noticed. He gives me a big greeting hug that lasts just a few seconds longer than seems appropriate, given that we were never huggy with each other. (And that we're both married.) He does the same thing when we say goodbye. His hand lingers in my hair. I don't know what to think. What's up with all the touching? I have an awful urge to run after him and say "Okay, why'd you just do that? Was that about what I think it was about? What's the deal here?"

I work near a guy who's a Healthy Lifestyle Nut. You know the type: He makes a point of traipsing through the office in exercise clothes and he's rarely seen without a plate of raw veggies or an energy drink in hand. I have no beef with that, of course. My beef is this: for the first several years I worked in this building, he would not look at me. It was one of the most unnerving things anyone's ever done to me. I'd smile at him pleasantly when we were on the elevator or if I passed him in the hall, and he'd just stare straight through me. He'd come over to chat to my cubicle neighbor and blow right past me. I found it so profoundly disturbing that I gave up on even trying to be friendly. The hell with the little turd.

And oh gee, guess what? I've lost a lot of weight and now he's smiley in the hallways, and he'll actually acknowledge my existence when he walks by my cube. I take way more pleasure than I probably should in giving him the same blank stare he used to give me -- if I even deign to look at him, which I often don't. If he tries to ask me where a colleague is, I'll really make him work to get my attention. Cram it, buddy; you had your chance to be nice and you blew it. Yeah, you could say I'm harboring some lingering resentment over that one. I'd try to be the bigger person here, but ... oh, right, I was a bigger person and he wouldn't talk to me. Ha!

Twice in the last couple of months, I've had near-strangers in my office building approach me with "Can I ask you a question?" I know what has to be coming next, but even so the directness shocks me a bit: "How much weight have you lost?" It's weird. There was a time when I thought I'd be incredibly proud to have lost 100 pounds, but now that I'm actually at that point I'm almost embarrassed to admit it. I'm mortified that I got that fat, that I ever had to lose that much in the first place. And geez, I'm not even done yet! These encounters start awkwardly and rarely end in a satisfactory way; the questioners generally want me to tell them my secret, and the secret is that I don't have one.

Don't get me wrong. I like compliments and I like it when total strangers make me feel cute for a few seconds, but I can only handle so much attention before I start wishing I could borrow Harry Potter's invisibility cloak and go about my day in peace. I've read theories that people get really obese in order to hide themselves, and I used to think said theories were utter rubbish. What's more visible than a really fat person? These days I think there might be something to those theories after all.

I often felt exposed and vulnerable as a severely obese woman. I was aware of people's eyes roaming over my plate at restaurants to see what I was eating; of friends who hadn't seen me before I got so fat checking me out when they thought I didn't notice; of strangers catching sight of me on the street and turning away with barely-concealed disgust. But it's also true that in a fundamental way, people often just didn't see me. Few people paid much attention to me. Eyes glanced off me. Sometimes I think I could have robbed a bank and gotten away with it because nobody would have been able to describe me much beyond "Well, Officer, she was ... fat." I mean, look at all the Headless Fat People photos used to illustrate the daily obesity crisis stories. Sometimes I wonder if this is how I actually appeared to everyone back then: a disembodied obese torso. No need to smile or even make eye contact with someone who doesn't exist from the neck up, right?

And now I'm acutely conscious of being seen again, and sometimes I just don't know how I feel about that. It kicks up all kinds of memories and emotions I haven't dealt with in years, especially when I'm caught off guard. If you hadn't noticed from the above examples, I tend to overthink the living hell out of things.

And that's why whenever I start entertaining fantasies that some day I'll open up my email and see "Hi! We work with the producers of a Really Famous Talk Show and we'd love to put you on TV so you can share your story with millions of people!" after which I will be whisked off to some sparkly TV land where semi-famous people gush all over the fabulousness that is me, it takes only a minute for the rational side of me to kick in. "Millions of people watching you? Some strange person asking you all kinds of nosy questions about your weight? And you think you'd like that? What are you -- fucking nuts?"

Bonfire of the Inanities.

So tonight I feel like getting all the vain, shallow stuff off my chest.

1. I'm not happy with the photo on my company ID badge. It was shot a couple of years ago when I was pushing maximum density. While there could be advantages to walking around with your own "Before" photo dangling from your neck every day ("You SURE you want that huge piece of birthday cake? Look down!"), I'm shallow. I'm tired of looking at Old Me; I want a photo where I have a visible neck. Is that so wrong? I actually pondered "losing" the old badge so I'd have to get my picture retaken. But there were a couple of flies in that particular jar of ointment: one, they charge you a not-insubstantial replacement fee, and two, I remembered that they keep copies of the badge photo. If you lose one badge, they just slap together a second one with the same picture.

Sigh. I guess I'll just have to live with it. I imagine that failing all else, we'll get new badges when our company moves headquarters next year.

2. As crummy as my ID badge photo is, my passport photo is so scary I'm surprised it doesn't turn people into stone. I just looked at it for the first time in a long time today. Hideous! I was 30, I was getting married, we were going to Ireland for our honeymoon, and I was running around DC like a kook trying to get everything together to renew my passport. My face looks like a blob of dough with two raisins stuck in it where my eyes should be. I didn't have on even a dab of makeup. And it was a really hot, humid day, so my hair was lank and flat and my face was shiny. Y'know, I was getting a picture that I was going to be stuck with for the next ten years -- would it have killed me to use a smidge of powder? What was I thinking?

My sole consolation is that I'll have the passport renewed again when I'm 40 -- and that if all goes according to plan I'll look a hell of a lot better than I did when I was 30. That's just neat.

3. A few months ago, I was asked to be a bridesmaid at a wedding taking place this October. Just to clear up any possible questions, I adore the bride-to-be and I was so touched to be asked that I misted up a little. But the thought of looking for and appearing in a bridesmaid's dress brought on enough angst for a week's worth of Cathy comics. "AAACK! I'm going to be the fattest woman in the bridal party! What if I lose a lot more weight after we get the dresses and I have to spend a fortune on alterations? What if I gain all the weight back before the wedding? What if the dresses are sleeveless and I still have my batwings? AAACK!" And so on.

I know I'm being silly. It's going to be fine. And nobody's going to be looking at me anyhow. However, it is an incentive to avoid going completely off the rails this year.

Why I'm Doing This.

So I've not had the best week, eating-wise. It's not that I was pigging out, exactly. It's more that the food obsession that drove some of the really bad eating habits of my past was starting to creep back into my head.

Something about being just under 200 pounds has me freaked, I think. I'm petrified of seeing the number on the scale go back up so I've been focused on Not Eating, which as we all know tends to bring on an incredible urge to just eat, eat, eat. Or at least it does with me.

The last couple of days were depressing. All of a sudden I felt like I was obsessing over all the wrong things -- the scale; the Don't Eat This, Don't Eat That crap -- after doing so well for so long at staying focused on my overall health. I felt like The Ghost of Failed Diets Past was floating over me.

Needed: A big perspective check.

Got one: This morning, via the bike.

We've been having unseasonably warm weather here and this morning was just divine -- not too hot, not too cold or windy (unlike last week). During every bike ride I attempt at least one thing I've never done before. This time, I rode the entire trail without stopping to get off the bike. Not once. Not even when I passed an adorable plump tabby cat sitting next to a bush and watching me. I also started fiddling with my gears a bit more and came up with a combination that gives my pedaling a lot more power along with the heightened resistance that lets my thighs know they're alive.

I was sailing along taking in all the intense reds and yellows and golds of the autumn leaves and marveling at my sense of increased strength, and that was when it hit me: This is why I'm doing this.

Not for the scale, not for my jeans size; you ain't gonna hear me complain when both those numbers go down, of course, but in the end they're side benefits.

I'm doing this because I like feeling healthy and strong. I like being someone who gets her ass up early on Saturday to go for a bike ride instead of sprawling on the sofa and going back to sleep. I like the renewed energy. I like the feeling of triumph when I push my body to do just that little bit more, and it does it. I like it when I turn down junk food not out of some misplaced sense of virtue but because I want to make eating choices that will fuel my body rather than bog it down.

It's a shame that I had to get to almost 37 years old before I truly appreciated the feeling of pushing my body and taking pride in its response.

But better now than never.

Setbacks.

Bah.

All of a sudden, the Evil Eat Everything Voice is back in control. Dammit.

I haven't been that bad, really. I haven't gone on an insane chips-and-salsa or Krispy Kreme binge (we just plain don't have that kind of stuff in the house anymore, which is helpful), but I've been back in the awful habit of eating just to eat. Eating a nice salad doesn't feel so virtuous when I know I'm just doing it to satisfy an insane eating urge rather than to nourish myself. I've been trying to get myself good and stuffed at meals just to remind my body of what it feels like to be full, but I don't know if this is even remotely helpful. It is that time in my monthly cycle when I feel driven to eat more than usual anyhow, so I'm hoping that this will pass in a few days.

I haven't slacked off on my exercise or even been particularly tempted to do so, so I've got that going for me.

Sigh. I guess I need to remind myself that I've been working at this eating and exercise plan for nine months now. I've never had to maintain a "diet" that long before (and with a good 60 pounds left to lose, to boot), so I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised that my focus is slipping a little.

We were driving down Rockville Pike today and I watched restaurant after restaurant after restaurant whizzing by. And I fantasized about going into them and eating something huge, greasy, and just plain decadent. "What would it be like to just go into a place and eat whatever the bloody hell I wanted to and not worry about eating slowly and mindfully or about making sure I get my veggies in or about the portion sizes or the calories?", I mused to myself.

Of course, the answer is obvious: Hello, McFly -- that's how I used to eat all the time, and that's how I ended up with so much friggin' weight to get off in the first place. I can go back to eating that way, and then in a few months I can unpack the too-large fat clothes I bagged up in July. And I can say goodbye to the cute smaller stuff that I was so delighted to be able to wear, and I can also forget about going to the Women's World department in Hecht's because once again I'll be too fat to fit into their plus sizes.

And I can rediscover the joys of sitting up half the night with indigestion, or running for the bathroom because the food I gorged myself on wants to get out of me by whichever exit is nearest. And I mustn't forget the way my back and feet and knees used to hurt all the time. Or how much fun it was when I'd start getting overheated and sweaty walking outside in near-zero temperatures in January.

Is that what I want for myself again?

Hell no. I was miserable. I never, ever want to feel like that again.

Take a deep breath. Hell, take two deep breaths. Relax. Refocus. Remember all the times I gave up on a healthful lifestyle in the past, and all the times after that when I'd say "Damn, if only I'd stuck with the way I was eating and exercising ..." I can and will make a better choice this time. Because when I get right down to it, there is no choice.

Go Sit In A Corner.

The scale is being punished.

After tantalizing me with a weight that was almost within five pounds of that magic 200 (but for one of those wretched .5s), it decided to get cute with me earlier this week and try to tell me that every day, I was gaining another pound.

Ha. I really, truly don't think so.

So I decided that instead of giving it the attention it's obviously craving by pulling a stunt like that, and starting off my mornings in a bad mood, I'd just ignore it for a few days. (Preferably until after That Time of the Month has come and gone, but I don't know if I can hold out that long.)

The scale can just sit there, alone and unloved, and think about what it's done.

Yesterday I went on another bike ride and was able to go from one end of the trail to the other with only a few stops for Gatorade, or for pushing the bike up a steep hill I just couldn't hack, or for finding out what the hell was causing that strange noise my bike was suddenly making (it was my seatbag coming loose and dragging against my rear tire). And today, I had two different people tell me I was looking good.

In your face, stupid scale! External feedback, both from other people and from my own observations of what my body is capable of doing now compared to how weak and out of shape I was last year, is more meaningful than what some smartass chunk of metal and plastic says anyhow.

That's not to say that I've got everything all sorted out. Tonight, for the first time in a long while, while I was eating dinner I had an overpowering urge to go load my plate up with a second helping of pasta. I knew I wasn't hungry; I just wanted to eat some more. "Aw, c'mon. It won't hurt you *that* much, and you can go back to your normal eating tomorrow."

I fought off the urge, but I wasn't happy to be hearing from that particular voice again.

I think the nice cafeteria cashier who complimented me today put the idea in my head. I bought some fruit off the salad bar and a single-serving bag of peanuts for an afternoon snack. She thought that was all I was eating for lunch. "Fruit and peanuts for lunch! No wonder you are getting (and here she held up her hands and moved them together to indicate a fat person getting thinner)".

And you know, maybe I should have explained that I'd already had a bowl of pho at a Vietnamese restaurant downtown and the fruit was dessert and the peanuts were for a snack, and that I don't and won't starve myself in order to lose weight. But I just smiled and thanked her and allowed her and everyone in earshot to think I was Being Good.

So yeah, I totally deserved a visit from the Evil Eat Everything Voice.

Stupid Brain Tricks

Yesterday, my mother and aunt and I went to a figure skating show in Northern Virginia.

Oh dear. No matter how much weight you may have shed in the last nine months (and as of this morning I was at 64.5 pounds gone), there's nothing like being around a bunch of tiny, ultra-fit skaters to make you feel totally immense. I'd been feeling pleased with myself because my mom complimented me left and right on how good I looked. Then I walked into the arena, saw various skaters slinking around in their spandex outfits, and immediately felt like the Incredible Bulk all over again. I haven't felt that acutely self-conscious about my size in ages. (And I didn't miss it a bit.)

I've also come to the conclusion that despite all the progress I've made this year in repairing my dysfunctional relationship with food, I still have an utterly bizarre obsession with eating. More to the point: I have an utterly bizarre obsession with eating when I'm going into a new situation and don't know what food choices will be available. Somehow, I've internalized the idea that if I get hungry and can't satisfy my appetite right that very second with something acceptable, the Earth will spin off its axis and the fate of humanity itself will hang in the balance.

We wanted to get to the rink super early to make sure we got seats for the show, and yesterday morning I started getting preoccupied with where we were going to eat, or if there was even much of anything available out in that area. I ate a little leftover tandoori chicken and lentils before we left, figuring that the protein would tide me over. And then I stashed Lemon Zest Luna Bars in my purse in case anyone got hungry and there wasn't a better option available.

And then I took a few breaths: How ridiculous was I being? As if any of us were going to starve to death in the space of four hours if God forbid there wasn't a McDonald's out there (although at this point I'd probably rather starve than eat in one of those anyhow). It's not as if I'm on a diet that only allows certain foods, or have a medical condition that would make eating at regular times an issue. In the absolute worst case scenario we wouidn't eat anything and I'd get a growly tum and maybe a little bit of a headache. What the hell was I so worried about?

Turns out that the rink had a big concession stand, and because athletes actually train there it even had some healthful food options rather than the usual McGreaseburger and Death Dog arena slop. And there were vending machines. And even a little bakesale held by a women's ice hockey team. (The representative of the women's ice hockey team struck me as so cool that I nearly joined the team on the spot before the Common Sense Fairy intervened.) But I ended up doing just fine with a bottle of water and a Luna Bar I ate later on when I started feeling a little peckish. I didn't starve, and if you've looked out the window lately you've probably noticed that the world is indeed still turning.

But now I know: That's another habit I desperately need to break. And this kind of thing is why I want to punch smug idiots in the mouth when they start spouting "Losing weight is SIMPLE -- all you do is eat less and exercise more, DUH!" with the usual smirk. Maybe for some people it is. For me, it's been a year full of rooting out all my old bad food habits and trying to put them to rest. And oh yes -- eating less. And exercising more. That's a big part of it, too, but the last thing I'd call any of this is "simple" (though I'll gladly call the smug idiots "simple," plus plenty of other things too).