A New Weigh of Life

Thirty seven days ago, I weighed myself and was not at all pleased. So I started working out regularly, on average 6 days a week. I started out with an hour of cardio each time, but I quickly worked up to 90 minutes per workout. When I say "cardio" I mean just that: jogging or boxing. None of this sissy-la-la low impact crap for me. No, my situation is far too dire. What I need is some boot camp style butt kicking, so when I work out, I finish each workout dripping sweat from every pour, my clothing drenched in massive sweat stains.

Though I was eating mostly sensibly at first, I felt my diet needed a boost, or at least some direction. On the advice of my hair stylist and friend Jessica, I signed up for Weight Watchers Online. The best part about that is that my Mom agreed to foot the $18 a month membership costs.

So I suppose the big question you have now is "How much weight have you lost so far?" The answer to that is 7 pounds, or at least that is what I was at on my last weigh in on Sunday. (I only weigh myself once a week) For the first 2 weeks, my weight didn't change, but I am told by the folks at Weigh Watchers that that is also normal. My last weigh in also didn't show any change because Aunt Flo is due, and I'm carrying some water weight, which is to be expected. It may not seem like a lot, but I know I have put on some muscle, plus I am already back into clothes that had stopped fitting months ago. I have also noticed a HUGE reduction in the amount of cellulite on my thighs, which is awesome. Other places on my body that have typically been problem areas, such as my back, upper arms and belly, are also shrinking and toning.

My goal is for healthy weight loss, which is typically defined as 2 pounds per week. My long term goal is to get back into a size 12, or even a 10, (right now I'm an 18) and I am more concerned with that than I am with what the scale says. I know from past experience that I will put on muscle as I lose weight, and that my jeans will be able to tell me just as much, if not more, about my progress than the scale can. Still, seeing the numbers drop down has been nice.

Learning what foods I can and cannot eat has been interesting. You would be surprised at what I actually can eat, and what I really can't afford to. The good news is that the foods I can't eat have healthy alternatives. There is vegan cheese, diet soda, fat free milk, Greek yogurt, brown rice, Ezekiel bread, whole wheat buns, veggie burgers, turkey bacon, and all sorts of other foods that I already liked. For example, 3 cups of orange chicken is 27 points, but 10 pieces of salmon nigiri is only 7 points. Since the only Chinese food I can even eat without getting sick is from a restaurant that I only eat at once or twice a year, that is fine with me, plus salmon nigiri is one of my favorite foods of all time anyway. French fries are obviously off limits, but many restaurants will give you cottage cheese and tomato slices instead, which is much better, especially if they have fat-free cottage cheese.

I'm of course eating a lot of the Weight Watchers food, which they sell at most grocery stores anyway, and the cost per meal is pretty cheap. I won't lie, they have one or two that I think taste just awful, but the majority of their food is actually pretty good, at least for diet food. They also have all of my junk food staples: pizza (mini-pizzas), burgers (slider burgers), egg muffin breakfast sandwiches, quesadillas, even dark chocolate raspberry popsicles. And it's not like the portions are tiny. The popsicles are normal size, and y0u get 4 little mini pizzas per serving (which are supposed to be a snack but I think suffice as a meal) and you can eat 2 of the sliders (which are meant to be individual snacks) as a meal. I supplement their stuff with produce most of the time. I get anywhere from 3 to 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day with healthy condiments, such as hummus or a tablespoon of light peanut butter. Everything has point values assigned to them, which makes me accountable for every single thing I eat in a day, so when I say a tablespoon of light peanut butter, that's exactly what I'm eating.

I control my portions of things like peanut butter because I have to. This also helps because I can still "be bad" if I want to. I get a set number of points per day, so if I really have to have something bad, say Chicken McNuggets, I know how I need to eat during the rest of the day or how much more exercise I need to do to offset that. That being said, I really am not bad at all. I've been to McDonalds just the one time. I come well under my point allowance for the day on most days and, unless I'm PMSing, I'm not starving to death in the process.

I've been chronicling my journey on my Facebook page. Every day, I do a post of 1 or 2 sentences describing my habits and thoughts for the day. It helps because I get lots of encouragement and positive feedback from my friends, and I've even inspired my friend Amy to start doing the same, which is awesome. I feel like I am sharing my journey with them and some days I really need that.

It's tough sometimes getting up in the morning knowing that after I eat and let my food settle I will be busting my butt for 90 minutes in the heat. Some days I'm sore, some days I'm tired, but I keep plugging away. If I have something to do during the day, I work out at night, and vice versa, but I always make sure to do my 90 minutes. The only days I have missed have been a couple days when I had massively bad cramps and 4 other days where I either spent all afternoon doing yard work or house work, all day walking around Disneyland and then the last day I missed was because I gave myself the 4th of July off. I am otherwise very disciplined. All I need for encouragement is a good look at myself naked to know that I can't afford to slack off.

Speaking of that, funny story. The day I weighed myself and started my workout routine, I felt totally disgusted about my body. I worked out that morning and had just gotten out of the shower when my, um, "Special Friend" came over. Not wanting to do the chick thing and fish for compliments or whine in his ear about "I'm so fat!" I hadn't said anything to him about weighing myself or any of the negative body issues I was wallowing in. As I took off my bathrobe to get into bed, he looked at me, smiled, and said "Wow." I was elated. Not only was I stoked that after 9 months (at the time) of seeing me naked, he was still "wowed," but because I sooooo needed the unsolicited compliment that day. I smiled coyly and said "You still think I'm hot?" He looked at me like I was insane and said "Of course I do!"

But, at the end of the day, I am doing this for me, not just to feel better about myself, but because I don't want to end up one of those headless fat people you see walking around on the evening news while some reporter talks about the obesity epidemic in America. I've spent a third (total) of my life being overweight, and that is too long.