Celebrate the little victories

May 26, 2013

38.4 pounds to go

Last Saturday was my 1- year health birthday and in honor of day 365 I’ll make a walking-cliché statement: it’s not a sprint it’s steady climb to the top.   Turtle and the hare.  Long term sustainability.  Find something that feels like a habit not a punishment.   Stick with it.  Don’t give up.  Insert additional platitude here.

There is no way to sprint to the finish line with weight loss, unless you have the fat sucked off with a vacuum cleaner (i.e. liposuction) and I can personally attest to my own impatience with the “this is taking forever” (groaaan) feelings.  Since it’s happening so gradually sometimes it can feel like nothing.  And when it feels like nothing, it’s easy to give up.  Then inevitably start another sprint a few weeks later and drool over someone else’s long-term results.

I think one of the most important tools of long-term success is to celebrate the little victories.  Find the changes in your body that inspire joy, as big or little as it may be.

Here are my little victories:

1) November 7, 2012 I woke up and realized my thighs no longer chaffed when I walked.  (Yes, I wrote down the date) This is the one major thing that I look forward to every time I get in shape.  No more finagling pantyhose or baby powder with skirts and dresses.  I can just wear them and be comfortable.

2) I have to buy a new belt because I ran out of notches.  I always wondered why belts came in small medium and large! 

There are so many terrible jokes I can think of to insert here that I have to restrain myself.

3) People wear belts to hold their pants up.  I now have to do that.  So belts aren’t just an accessory?

4) Two words: skinny jeans.  I have two pairs from college.  I got into the first one in December.  Commence prancing.

5) Additional “I’m in the pants” dances.  I had several old pairs that hung in my closet for years and I’ve been slowly shrinking out of them.

6) I can tuck my shirt in without a muffin top.

7) My boobs are smaller.  Shrunk down 2 sizes so far. (I know for most women, this would make them sad but I come from German stock.  Even when I’m skinny they’re huge!  I’ve always said if I could find a way to share I would.)

8) Making it up the stairs without wheezing.

9) Using a hotel towel and it wraps all the way around so I look cute and not blobby.  This is one of my favorite victories.

10) I had to throw away all my size 16 pants.  Even with a belt there’s no hope.  I remember a year ago when they were getting uncomfortably tight. (Although I did keep one pair for final ‘after’ pictures.)

11) One of my favorite summer shirts is so loose I looked down and realized I could see my toes since it’s so baggy.  This is now starting to happen with the next size down.  Need new shirts!

12) No more baggy arms that keep waving after I stop.  (Ladies, you know what I’m talking about)

13) Thigh cellulite significantly reduced.  This is one of those things that is nearly impossible to get rid of no matter how hard I try.  It’s a girl thing.

14) I’m cold all.the.time.  Thank god summer is here.

15) One word: collarbone.

16) I let people take pictures of me again. 

17) I can go into any store and try on clothes.  Skinny stores tend to cut off at size 10-12. (Here’s looking at you Ambercrombie.)

18) I can cross my legs comfortably.

19) I can sit Indian style.

20) I can cross my arms without pushing my boobs up to my chin.

21) I can hug my knees to my chest.

22) I can see muscle tone on my calves and arms.  Tummy, you’re next!

23) It’s easy to trim my toenails.  (To echo Louis C.K. the worst part of my day is no longer putting on my socks.)

24) I can race you.

25) I’ve finally experienced a runner’s high.  I always thought those guys were lying.  If I had seen a glimpse of myself a year ago preparing to go running I would have laughed.  Yeah right!  Running.   That’s stupid.

26) I went bikini shopping for the first time without wanting to stab someone.

27) My body fat percentage is in an acceptable range. (Although, according to BMI charts I’m still not there which confuses me.)

28) I’ve lost 7 inches in my waist.

29) My favorite – I have a pair of sleeping boxers with an elastic waistband and I’ve shrunk out of the elastic circumference.  They literally won’t stay up but I can’t seem to part with them because my brother gave them to me.

That's elastic.

Not everything happens all at once, but I notice small things as gradually as they happen and it makes me feel pretty amazing.  Hail the conquering hero!

What was old is new again

May 11, 2013

39.8 pounds to go

This past month has been a struggle.  Truly.  I started slipping into ‘beat-myself-up-land-because-I’m not-losing-weight.”  I started oversnacking.  Overexercising.  Struggling.  The endless whining internal dialogue of ‘why is this so hard for me? Why can’t I get over it?  I’m never going to reach my goal.  Sob.’  My thoughts were constantly creeping towards the side of what I wasn’t doing and how much more weight I have to lose.  How it’s still a lot.  The inspections of my body became more frequent and more critical.  Is this stomach acceptable?  Still considered to big?  Maybe if I squeeze it in 13 second intervals it will start to look more sexy.

But I want to keep moping!

Getting down on myself on a daily basis for what I hadn’t accomplished was sucking me to the darkside.  It’s an old habit.  A pre-health-journey habit that I didn’t even realize I was participating in because it’s so comfortable.  And did I come to that conclusion on my own?  No, I needed help.  About a week ago I went into my therapist ('get help when you can’t do it on your own' in action) because I had slipped into random compulsive eating (get over here chips and cheese.  Mmmm) and that hadn’t happened in at least 9 months.  Why can I no longer control myself?  Help!

So I bitched about my weight and my alarm with my lack of self-control.  Then we started talking about other stuff.  The wedding planning.  The  family.  The work.  Work has been a struggle recently (specifics are changed for the sake of my employment) and I surprised myself on how long I went on about it.  There isn’t a hard red line sharpie mark from “my employees are idiots” à “hand me the twinkie” because back in the winter I was under far more stress and the weight was still steadily dropping.  The difference is “my employees are idiots and I give up trying to teach them because it’s impossible.  Space.  Please hand me the twinkie.”  That feeling of despair or ‘giving up’ is what makes friends with the bag of kettlecorn.  Fill the impossible void.

Then she gave me really good advice (which she always does): treat my journey like I’m at the beginning again.   Pretend I’m at the starting line.

Which is impeccable timing because in my chapter outlines, right around now I had planned on talking about that farewell meal ritual I always plan for myself before I go on a diet.  A last supper to launch into the ‘new me’ which of course, never works and is never as satisfying as I think it’s going to be.  Although I do remember every meal I ate as a splurge before each official start over the years.  One time it was Arby’s. Then a big BLT.  I always remember what I put in my mouth and then the ensuing failure.

The difference this time with pretending to start over is going back to last May and thinking about how I saw myself.  How I saw this journey going.   I remember loathing exercise (which is still alive, but I force myself), scared of the food and being drawn to red meat.   Recently I’ve been overexercising and cut out the red meat, so I decided to flip those around.

However, the biggest, glaring difference is that even though I was ready to get on board with changing, I didn’t hate myself or my body.  I quite liked myself.  Even though it was bigger I still felt sexy.  And now that I am 60 pounds lighter and I started the daily beat-up.  Of how not sexy I am.  Of how much more I have to go.  Of the daily belly inspection.  So the biggest change I needed to make with pretending this is the beginning was to be nice to me.  It sounds silly but I forgot how to do that.  Be happy in the current package.

Although it may seem irrelevant, it’s the ever so slight attitude adjustment of thinking: it’s not about what I don’t want.  It’s about what I do want.  It’s not about what I don’t like but what I do like.  Just changing the view from the negative connotation “I don’t” to the positive “I do” has shifted me back onto my path.  What was old is new again.