First compliment

Today, slightly past the 25 lb mark I got my first “hey, you’ve lost a lot of weight” compliment.

I never know how to deal with these. It’s different when it’s people who I know are aware that I’m losing weight. Then I can be frank and open about the struggles. But, with people who don’t know and I don’t discuss these things with it’s hard to know how to respond.

It is of course very gratifying that someone notices, it feels like effort is paying off. It’s also a little terrifying that if I fail then they will notice that too.

For me at this time it’s also difficult to accept the compliment gracefully. I’m still struggling with the numbers. I ‘feel’ slightly over 200 lbs. I felt that way at 201.2 lbs, which was my lowest weight in 2010. I felt that way at 220 lbs, my default weight for the last five years. And, I felt that way at 237.8 lbs when I was wondering why my clothes were all too tight. So, in some ways I don’t feel as though I have lost any weight until I cross that 200 lb mark. At the same time I am trying to push myself to recognize that if I do lose 37.8 lbs that’s no small task, so I’m also trying to celebrate that.

Unfortunately, I ducked the issue in public and changed the subject quickly.

Positive vs. Negative

I work in a health-related industry. What does that mean? It means I work with a lot of information about health but I am not a health practitioner like a doctor, nurse etc… As such, I get a huge volume of information about health, and despite that I still struggle with weight. So, I’m pretty much case in point that you can have all of the information and it will not change your life.

One of the debates in health information, specifically about diet and exercise is if it should be communicated in positive or negative language. Is it more effective to warn people about the dangers of certain foods, the dangers of inactivity and tell people what not to do? Or, is it more effective to focus on positive language about what people should do, easy tips to increase activity and what foods you should eat. The reasonably simple answer here is that both types of information must be provided. If the patient / consumer doesn’t know that pop contains two cups of sugar and sugar will do all sorts of bad things to your system then they may think it is part of getting their daily intake of water. Likewise if you tell someone who has been raised on a steady diet of pop to stop drinking pop you also want to give them healthy alternatives and suggestions for how to transition off of pop.

As an individual I find that the positive vs. negative speak still merits a lot of consideration, especially as I think about food.

Common wisdom on the internet seems to lean towards the positive side. That when attempting a life style change that the direction should be to think about what foods you can have, what healthy foods you enjoy and to avoid focusing on what you cannot have and what you are not allowing yourself. Increasingly there is a push to not deny yourself foods so that you don’t end up binge eating on foods that you have denied yourself.

I believe all of this is very good advice. Especially if you have grown up on the Standard American Diet.

However, I am finding that the negative food speak is actually working better for me. It is not entirely one or the other. I still think a lot about what I do like to eat and what I do enjoy. However, to keep myself on track I am finding it easier to have a simple check list of “do not eat”. If I run down the checklist to make sure it does not have:

• Dairy
• Refined sugars
• Grains
• Legumes

Then I am all set to go. I feel confident in what I can select. I know what I’m cutting out and I don’t feel panicky about if I am going to go over my calories if I eat that piece of cake. I’m not going to eat the cake unless it’s a flourless cake. Simple.

I know this approach is not for everyone. I also realize it would be too restrictive for many and would result in a dive off the wagon and into the bag of chips. But, for me it is working so I thought I’d put it out there.

Mini-Goal: 25 lbs!

I’m surprised to be reaching my 25 lb mini-goal today. My weight has been jumping around a little, and while I am used to it jumping up I’m not used to it jumping down. Typically it will either jump up for no discernible reason, or more likely for a reason like drinking three pints of cider and then I will spend the next week really watching what I eat as it inches it’s way back down.

I’m getting very interested in learning how alcohol affects weight. I know that sodium makes me retain lots of water. When I overdo it on chips I will see a spike in my weight then when the salt is out of my system the water drops and my weight drops suddenly as well. Sugar is more long lasting. It packs the weight on like sodium but I have to fight every step of the way to get it off, there is no sudden water loss. Alcohol seems to be in-between the two. The weight seems to come on suddenly sometimes up to two days later and then I need to be careful for a few days but then it drops off suddenly like salt.

But, today is about celebrating the 25 lb mark. My reward for 25 lbs is a manicure. I’m backlogged on my rewards and probably will be for a little bit as the bank account is a bit tight right now. But in a couple of weeks I will have some fun.

Surviving the cottage – sort of.

I am back from the cottage and covered in black fly bites. Covered may be a bit of an exaggeration, but the 10+ that I have are super itchy.

To prepare I cooked all my own food in advance and brought it with me to the cottage. It was an odd experience. I did feel like a bit of an outsider with my own food. The girls brought a counter full of chips, another full of sweets, and probably at least ten times as much food as the group could actually eat. Alcohol included:

• 32 bottles of wine
• 2 bottles of sangria
• 12 bottles of Mike’s Hard Lemonade
• 1 case of beer
• 2 bottles of gin
• 1 bottle of malibu rum

At the cottage I stuck to my food and didn’t even allow myself so much as a chip, because I knew if I went there I was going to dive all the way down the rabbit hole. It wasn’t as hard as I expected. I found that being away from home for the first time since my brother passed was difficult. I had a lot of difficulty sleeping and my appetite really wasn’t present.

I did allow myself one or two drinks per day. Only wine. I was concerned about the grain in the beer and the sugars in the Mike’s Hard, and Malibu… and I simply don’t like gin.

Being an observer of the weekend more than a participant I was more acutely aware of the peer pressure these girls put on each other to eat crap. The girls, for the most part, are of average size. Some skinny, some a little plump, but I would be one of the heaviest. There is a lot of celebration about letting go of their own structured eating and diving into crap food. A lot of them complained of stomach aches, and by day three many were taking extended naps.

On the one hand I’m glad the girls have the outlet. It’s important to be able to eat without guilt. On the other hand, it gave me a fairly good reminder that my body is feeling better eating the way that I am currently eating. I don’t want to go back to a place where I am constantly craving chips, cookies and ice cream – eating them, feeling terrible and still craving them.

When I returned home and took my weight the next day not only had I not gained any weight, but I had lost another 0.2 lbs. I was very happy with myself.

… Then the next day I gained 0.6 lbs for no apparent reason. And, I reminded myself that this is not a straight arrow journey and to keep doing what I’m doing, because for the most part it is working.

Mini-Goal: 22 lbs

I had a big dip on the scale today 1.2 lbs bringing me below my 22 lb target. Woot! Woot!

Not sure if I’ll be able to hang onto it or if it will bounce around for a while. But I’m happy to reach it. I still have the cottage weekend to go. Food is all made so if I can avoid diving into all the stuff that I’m allergic to and should avoid anyways I am hoping to come out having maintained this loss.

Reward: Lip/Eyebrow wax.

 

Recipe Review: Salisbury Steak

This has quickly become a household favourite. It is again from Every Day Paleo which has become my go-to blog for simple, good paleo recipes.

Prep time is under 10 minutes for me. I do a bit of additional prep for the gravy while the steaks are cooking. I find the recipe easily makes 8 servings. This one has been a big hit with my partner. It also keeps very well, re-heats easily and travels in my lunch containers well.

Mini-Goal: 21 lbs!

I’m mid-way through my eating out week. I have my lunches out and the cottage weekend to go. However, so far so good. I just hit my 21 lb loss mini-goal and the first mini-goal in my second 20 lb goal.

I have earned myself a rental from apple TV. I still need to get a new top and have my hair trimmed from my last 20 lbs, but I did do the pedicure yesterday.

I have planned out my food for the cottage so I am hoping I can stay healthy and stick to my eating plan because I know that there will be real health consequences, not just weight gain, if I do not. And, I would of course prefer to spend my cottage weekend having fun, not chained to the bathroom (yeah TMI – sorry).

Eating Out

Eating out and trying to maintain a diet or food restrictions has always been a problem for me. I used to allow myself to be exempt from my diet when I ate in restaurants or at friends houses. That didn’t work. I then tried to guess calories and meticulously log everything I put in my mouth to the best of my ability. That was frustrating and also didn’t work.

I have a lot of anxiety around this week since I am rarely eating at home.

Saturday – Dinner out
Sunday – Lunch out & Dinner out
Monday – Lunch out & Dinner out
Tuesday – Dinner out
Wednesday – Lunch out
Thursday – Lunch out
Friday – Monday – All meals out (cottage)

My basic plan is to try to stick to the weird paleo restrictions when eating out. This will limit what I put in my body and will hopefully keep me to reasonable portion sizes, if I am careful.

My nemesis, especially on the cottage weekend will be too much alcohol, which can also lead to diving off the paleo diet.

The glimmer of hope is that I’m more than a month into doing paleo and so far it is working incredibly well for me. I do have more energy. I am losing weight without any other efforts like calorie counting or exercising. I am not full-full but I am content-full and not feeling hungry and jealous of other people’s food. This will, of course, be difficult on cottage weekend when I will be surrounded by tempting carbs and more carbs all weekend.

Wish me luck!

The generosity of plus sized clothes

Plus sized clothes are very generous and forgiving. This is a good thing and a sometimes a tiny-bit of a bad thing. Most of the clothes I wear on a regular basis were purchased when I was around 220 lbs. Which is a weight I have been sitting at for a couple of years now. At this weight I am approximately a size 14.

I noticed that at nearly 240 lbs I could still wear all of these clothes, but the pants were getting tight and the sweaters were not hiding my belly as much as I like. I also know that at 200 lbs I can wear the same clothes and they are simply a bit looser giving me a bit of an illusion of a flat belly.

So, basically my plus sized clothing has a range of at least 40lbs, possibly 60 lbs. The good part about that is that I don’t have to buy clothes for each 10 lb increment. The tiny-bad part about it is that I don’t have to buy clothes for each 10 lb increment which means it requires significant weight loss to actually cue anyone that I have changed sizes.

There is another major benefit to plus sized clothing, its cut differently than clothing in ‘regular’ sizes. Tops are generally longer, bottoms have a bit of elasticity. This is flattering because when the body is not cut at the waist you don’t highlight the belly area.  This is one reason I’m not very sure if I ever really want to be lower than a size 12 mostly because I love the cuts of plus size clothes and hate how revealing I feel most ‘regular’ sizes are.

Frustrated

I have reached that inevitable point in any life style change, weight loss, diet, trying-to-do-something-new process where there is failure and now I am feeling frustrated by it.

It is a completely inconsequential failure, unless I let it have consequences.

After reaching my 20 lb goal, I have had an incredibly minor set back. A 1.2 lb set back to be precise.

I was prepared for this. In fact, I thought I was going to have a set back before I hit my goal since I had a whole weekend of eating out with our families. I was more than pleased when I managed to maintain through that. Then I hit my goal – yay! Happy dance! And then the next day I gained 0.4 lbs, and then another 0.4 lbs and then another 0.4 lbs and I started to lose my calm, just a little bit.

Part of it was the weight gain, part of it was that I couldn’t explain the weight gain. I was keeping within my caloric range. On day one I had come close to max calories but not over and on day three I had had some alcohol, but not more than my daily calories worth.

What bothers me most is how bothered I am by all of this.

If I am going to make this healthy change permanent and not fail yet again I cannot let myself be so distressed by a measly 1.2lb gain. I need to look at the big picture. I need to remember that there are other factors of success like how I feel, how I am fitting into my clothes, my mood and energy levels.

So, this is my confession. I let myself be frustrated by a 1.2 lb gain that will likely not matter in a month. Now, I need to go live my life and make sure I stay committed to my goals and realize this is a very small trivial matter.