varied ponderings

Three weeks since I’ve been to the gym. Without exercise I’ve begun to feel quite a bit of pain again — so much so that it alarmed the massage therapist this week. So if for no other reason than just not aching, I need to set the needle back in the groove. Tomorrow is a new month. It occurs to me to challenge myself to go every day in the month, but I wonder if that's not such a large goal that I’m setting myself up for failure. More reasonable to challenge myself to exercise every day this week, be it outside, yoga, or the gym. Then I can string the weeks together to make a month.
***
One morning last week as Mister Husband and I were walking to the El, an old man leaning on a cane stood in the middle of the square and started yelling to us. “Your hair, it’s so pretty! You’re the best thing I’ve seen all day!” It was oddly sweet. Hey, the day you stop looking is the day you die.
***
After we finished teaching today, we took off across town. Ended up in an unfamiliar neighborhood in a familar section, and then in a new-to-us park. We spent about an hour tromping around and taking photographs, and my ankle went uphill and downhill and all over uneven grass and felt mostly fine. It was grey, a little drizzly and brisk. Perfect. We had a great time.

sweet home Chicago

We were in Chicago, one of my favorite cities, almost all of last week for work-related stuff. And man, I had forgotten how much better the food is there — especially compared to the Twin Cities. Minnesotans are not renowned for their cuisine, which tends toward the bland and lifeless. The story I always tell to illustrate this involves a Minnesotan friend of mine who once served me chili that contained no chili powder. Her spice rack consisted of an old can of pre-ground pepper and some long-dead onion flakes. Not everyone around here is like that, but I still find that it’s best to not eat the white-people food. And with so many great ethnic restaurants around, that’s pretty easy to do.

So anyway, Chicago: land of famous hot dogs, pizza, and steaks. I don’t think I ate anything untasty the entire time I was there. I had given myself permission to order pretty much whatever I wanted, so long as I watched my portions. It turned out that I was quite surprised by what it was that I wanted. Usually I eat consistently horribly when I travel. This time was much ore schizophrenic. Sometimes I felt like onion rings and red meat, but other times I felt like a salad of baby greens with apple, pear, gorgonzola, and raspberry vinagrette. Sometimes I felt like half of a veggie omelet with hashbrowns, and sometimes I felt like a bagel with egg and red peppers. I kept turning down sausage with breakfast, although I did eat meat at various other meals (but not always). And I never ate to the point that it hurt. So some of the good habits really are seeping in! I gained one pound while we were gone, which is acceptable to me provided that it comes back off pronto.

on or off the wagon?

Am I on or off the wagon this week? It’s difficult to tell. I haven’t been to the gym in ten days, and I hate that. I had a houseguest, and two days of blizzards, and then The Husband came back home and of course I wanted to lounge around with him in the morning rather than suit up and wade through the snow to the gym. But that only takes me through last Thursday. Why haven’t I been on Friday or Saturday? Or today? There’s really no excuses for that. I’ve done yoga once, but that’s it.

I think this is somehow all involved with some sort of bizarre pre-disgust that I won’t be able to go to the gym next week, since we’ll be at a conference from Tuesday until Saturday. If I can’t go then, why go now? (That's entirely ridiculous.) The hotel has an exercise room, though, and I will remember to bring clothes for that. And we'll be walking all over Chicago. And I can take exercise bands with me for the room. And yoga is very portable.

Eating has been interesting as well this week. Ovo-lacto except for a piece of fried fish on Tuesday and a small portion of corned beef on St. Patrick’s day. There’s been beef broth in a couple of soups as well. I haven’t necessarily been trying to avoid meat, but I just don’t want it. I got veggies on my half of the pizza we ordered on Thursday, and have turned down many opportunities for sausage. Last night, the Husband decided that IHOP would make an appropriate birthday meal, so off we went. I had half of a veggie omelet and more of an order of hash browns than I had planned on. (Formerly I would have had biscuits and gravy and sausage and eggs and hashbrowns.)

What else? Not many sweets. But I have been eating quite a bit of dairy, and not skim or half-fat stuff either. Goat cheese and crackers. One 120-calorie cups of yogurt each day. Sharp cheddar on avocado and sprout sandwiches. The pizza had full-fat cheese, of course. Some mixed nuts, but a reasonable amount.

Looking at this, it’s not as dismal as I thought. I’ve also kept up on water and sleep and massage. Things could be better exercise-wise, but they could also be much, much worse overall. Maybe I’ll get up the courage to weigh myself in a minute. I notice that my wedding ring is suddenly much looser, so maybe some of the water has come off.

Update: Weighed! And yep, back down to 217ish. When I went back to school about this time last year, I was 213 and could wear Mister Husband’s jeans. I just went and put a pair of them on, and they’re actually too big, so 217 must be generally accurate. (Depending on how I stand on the scale, it reads anywhere between 208 [preposterous] and 225 [which strikes me as high].)

Noticing

When the massage therapist and I were doing the pre-pummeling inventory yesterday, I was commenting on bodily things that had happened in the past week that I thought were strange. An eight-pound water-retention gain, for instance. The fact that I suddenly have a very, very low tolerance for meat. (More on that later.) The fact that I’m sleeping wonderfully in spite of quite a lot of work stress. [No, there’s not the remotest chance I’m pregnant, so don’t ask about that.]

Then, once I was on the table, it occurred to me that perhaps none of these things is really strange in itself. It’s the fact that I bothered to notice them that is strange. There’s a phrase in academia, “brain on a stick.” It refers to the scholar’s tendency to ignore their body in favor of nurturing their brain, and it explains all the poor health and bizarre haberdashery and coiffure that goes on. In the past, I’ve been very bad about that. I make a point of wearing clean, appropriate clothes, keeping my hair cut and dyed, and keeping up with hygeine, but I have a tendency to ignore the way my body feels. I can ignore pain (especially the kind that comes from inactivity), thirst, sleepiness, whatever, when I’m working through a semester.

I was jolted out of that mindset last winter when I broke my ankle. All of a sudden, I was forced to be very in tune with my body and how it felt and what it needed. When I was recovering, I promised myself that I would maintain that awareness, that it would be one of the good things to come out of that accident. And I have, although it’s been a very gradual process over the past year in order to make it a daily habit. But now I know when something hurts or I need to drink more water, and I almost always do something about it. That’s a huge difference.

flirting

I should point out from the get-go that I’m happily married. I adore my husband, and he adores me. It’s wonderful to be married to someone who absolutely gets you, and who accepts all of your faults and celebrates your good attributes. There’s nobody else I would rather be with.

But still, the ego likes to be stroked. The other day, I went across the street to the grocery store in my pajamas (with a coat on over) and no makeup whatsoever. The early-20s cashier flirted like mad with me while I was checking out. Fun, put a little kick in my day, but I quickly forgot about it. Can’t even remember what he looked like. But still, it’s nice to be noticed.

March measurements (and Sunday weigh-in)

So I weighed myself this morning (a day late, because I forgot yesterday until after Charlotte and I had eaten lovely potatoes and cauliflower and broccoli). Usual fetishistic procedure: naked, freshly emptied, same place on the kitchen floor. The scale insists that I am up eight pounds since last week. Methinks I need a new fucking scale. Although we've been eating chili and other things that might make me retain water. And I have no idea where in my cycle I am, since I’ve taken myself off birth control pills and thusly things are funky right now.

So, in a fit of desperation, I ran in the bedroom and grabbed the Tight Jeans, which are freshly laundered. I've been wearing them again since I began to get into them about ten days ago, even though they give me muffin top. They’re straight out of the laundry and therefore as tight as they get, and I could zip them without any struggle at all.

So then I decided it was time to measure myself, since it’s been about a month. Here’s the results of that:

• Bicep: - .5 inches
• Breasts: - 1 inch
• Waist: - 1 inch
• Belly: - 2.5 inches
• Hips: -.5 inch
• Thigh: -.5 inch
• Calf: Entirely the same. But I noticed some new muscle definition there the other day, while standing in the correct light

Shrinkage all over! I can calm down a bit. Damned scale!

I suppose it’s useful, though, because I have now revised my breakfast plans from buckwheat pancakes to oatmeal with banana.

the current status

I hadn’t intended to do this sort of a post — the one where you say how much you worked out and how things are changing and what you weigh. But so many others who are further down the line have written about how it helps them to look back and see their progress. Here goes:

I weigh once a week, on Sundays. Last Sunday, I weighed 217 pounds. That's 13 pounds down from my all-time high weight, and about 9 pounds down since the holidays. I’m averaging about a pound per week, although that’s not the way it’s come off. I lost five pounds in January, then nothing or a slight regain when I started at the gym because I was eating out of nervousness, and then several pounds each week since I’ve been serious about the water and massage. (Which have in turn calmed the eating.) I’m really not sure what I’ll weigh tomorrow. I’ve done well the water this week, had more deep-tissue work done, but only been to the gym twice and done yoga once. But both of those gym trips were full-out with cardio and weights. I’ve eaten relatively well, and mostly ovo-lacto except an adventure with a few slices of an extra-lean meatloaf. My massage therapist can tell a difference in my body — more flexibility, less pain, better tissue consistency. I definitely feel stronger and have much less pain.

In spite of the consistent progress I’ve made, actually being able to sustain loss seems so remote to me. Earlier this week, and today, I was feeling confident that I was making progress. My mini-goal is 200, which I should theoretically be able to make by summer. But then I started playing around with a BMI calculator, and figured out that I need to be 196 in order to be merely overweight and not obese. To be at the high end of the “normal” weight range would put me at 165 or so. That’s lower than my high school weight. It doesn’t even seem feasible or possible. 200 seems farfetched enough.

So it helps to read the archives of someone like YP, who has been through all of this and made it. Reading her is particularly inspirational because she also broke her ankle and had plates and things installed, and now she’s a runner. I thought that was something that was completely outside the realm of possibility for me, but apparently not. I’ve never, ever been in the shape to run, but I’ve always had running dreams. Then I broke my ankle 13 months ago, and figured that was it for the idea of running. But maybe it’s still possible! I’m determined to drop off enough poundage and build up my fitness enough to find out.

drunk on bergamot

Years ago, I got interested in aromatherapy and started using essential oils in the bath. Somewhere in the process, I got addicted to lavender. Although I read somewhere that too luch lavender could lead to a sort of internal metaphysical imbalance, I loved it too much to quit. Lavender in the bath, in my lotion, on my sheets. And eventually, I did start to feel ... off. And then very off. I was drunk on lavender. So I backed off it and then things were fine.

Lately, I find myself similarly bewitched with bergamot. It started with some double-bergamot Earl Grey. Then this week I picked up a bottle of bergamot body wash at Body Shop, and it makes a lovely bubble bath. I’m looking for a bergamot body scent, I think. I am drunk on bergamot, at least for the time being.

lessening

Tonight was my second deep-tissue massage appointment since I started this project. It turned out that it was evident that I had made changes: less pain in my arms, thighs, and back. All the water and stretching and movement shows. But somehow, all that extra pain has gone to my glutes. Hurty hurt hurt.

Still, just the fact that there are changes is enough to keep me going right now.

40E

So I’ve had stomach flu for five days, and now I’m down a size. Funny how that happens. Funny how it won’t last. Especially since I haven’t worked out since last Friday.

Another thing I did Friday before I got sick was go and get refitted for bras. Mine have been out of whack for quite awhile now — you know, that thing that happens when they get too small and the underwires don’t fit against your rib cage anymore, and so you get a little wire shelf in between the boobs. Hott.

The last time I was fitted was back in HomeTown, by a tiny Argentine named Elsa. She’d been fitting me for about five years. When she first got me, she was mortified by my Victoria’s Secret bras and the shape (or lack thereof) they conferred. I’m well-endowed by genetics, and the added weight adds even more. As she fitted me, there was lots of “You poor girl!” (sympathetic, oddly comforting), lots of measuring and hauling back and forth of bras. She must have put me through 15 bras before she was satisfied, and by that time she knew so much about my upper half that we could have gotten married. I left with a 38D Bali minimizer, and was very happy for awhile. By the time I left that town, I was a DD. Now I find that I’m a 40E (after having lost a few pounds). I bought two molded Fantasie bras at $66 each, which make things look great. The problem is the bras themselves look like they belong to a very large drag queen. (Perhaps Harvey Fierstein’s sidekick in Torch Song Trilogy.) I also bought two minimizers that were around $50, partly because I couldn’t figure out how to travel with the other ones. They’d need their own luggage.

When I was first fitted at 14, I was a 34C. At 20 I was a 38C, so we might assume that is my full-grown adult size. 40E is definitely news to me.