FOOD (will finish updating the week's food in the next few days).
After a week of trainings and not being able to control my eating as much (but still regimented.... deficits and one day at a 300 surplus which actually started my losing weight again), back to 1K deficits.
Monday: 8 oz apple (134), 3 Dove dark chocolate (126), 3 cheese wraps (450), Multigrain Cheerios (110), Recovery drink (220), couscous (300), Shakeology (140), footlong Subway roast beef sub (580), 2060 total calories consumed, 3250 calories burned, 1190 deficit
Tuesday: 8 oz apple (134), 2 Dove Dark chocolate (84), 3 cheese wraps (450), Recovery drink (220), 4 couscous (600), Shakeology (140), ON Whey protein drink (110), 1738 total calories consumed, 2903 calories burned, 1165 deficit
TUESDAY MORNING: Julie (Johnston, owner of Boot Camp Las Vegas) did a military obstacle/running thing and blew everyone away so we had two military men come and take class with us yesterday along with their wives and daughter. We started with a 3/4 mile team tire run then we did an obstacle course including medicine ball burpies (ball up, jump, down, burpie while balancing hands on the ball), crab crawls, bear crawls, shoulder presses with dumbbells), did weighted situps, competition tire pulls (won it by a lot, almost half the distance, and I only note this because I want to note the progress in different stuff... and I'm not sure I was in better shape, I just wanted it more). I'm no longer the last one in running drills, I'm about one or two up from last. My next challenge is obstacle courses, still last on that one. Also linked arms and sat on a hill to keep our core up, crawled underneath everyone while they were in up dog position (raised butt plank), held arms up about 2 minutes while walking, running, doing high knees) and held legs off the ground 6 inches for two minutes (I still can't do this but I think I'm getting better at it).
After a week of trainings and not being able to control my eating as much (but still regimented.... deficits and one day at a 300 surplus which actually started my losing weight again), back to 1K deficits.
Monday: 8 oz apple (134), 3 Dove dark chocolate (126), 3 cheese wraps (450), Multigrain Cheerios (110), Recovery drink (220), couscous (300), Shakeology (140), footlong Subway roast beef sub (580), 2060 total calories consumed, 3250 calories burned, 1190 deficit
Tuesday: 8 oz apple (134), 2 Dove Dark chocolate (84), 3 cheese wraps (450), Recovery drink (220), 4 couscous (600), Shakeology (140), ON Whey protein drink (110), 1738 total calories consumed, 2903 calories burned, 1165 deficit
TUESDAY MORNING: Julie (Johnston, owner of Boot Camp Las Vegas) did a military obstacle/running thing and blew everyone away so we had two military men come and take class with us yesterday along with their wives and daughter. We started with a 3/4 mile team tire run then we did an obstacle course including medicine ball burpies (ball up, jump, down, burpie while balancing hands on the ball), crab crawls, bear crawls, shoulder presses with dumbbells), did weighted situps, competition tire pulls (won it by a lot, almost half the distance, and I only note this because I want to note the progress in different stuff... and I'm not sure I was in better shape, I just wanted it more). I'm no longer the last one in running drills, I'm about one or two up from last. My next challenge is obstacle courses, still last on that one. Also linked arms and sat on a hill to keep our core up, crawled underneath everyone while they were in up dog position (raised butt plank), held arms up about 2 minutes while walking, running, doing high knees) and held legs off the ground 6 inches for two minutes (I still can't do this but I think I'm getting better at it).
Then slept, then at night did my CED (ChaLean Extreme Deluxe) which was cardio (actually something like 24HF's SET, cardio/light weights/cardio/light weights) and abs, total of about 55 minutes, then went to Zumba, then to Peter's Hip Hop class for the first time since his class got cancelled and I had never attended.
TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Ran the mile in 8:25, shaved a whole minute from last time. I think I notice a difference (other than the obvious duh it's faster). Did an obstacle course and I go uphill and especially downhill A LOT better, I'm losing my fear of running downhill, at least on grass. Jumped on picnic tables (first seat, then top of the table, then seat on other side, then down) and I really enjoyed it.
SATURDAY MORNING - Haven't written since Tuesday. Starting today going to make it a priority to write SOMEthing every day. Because I forget what we do in boot camp and the days mesh together. Wednesday was leg day so just various leg exercises and Thursday was arms day. Friday we ran a rocky terrain for about 50 minutes with some hill work. I can run fast down pavement now, and I couldn't do that three weeks ago. And I'm not the last one anymore on pretty much any day. I can certainly see progress.
I still have to learn to run down rocky hills, that's next on the agenda. Have to run straight down and maybe a bit in a diagonal instead of sideways, because that's how people fall.
Went swimming for an hour after boot camp, and loved it. Training for the triathlon. Then went home, rested for an hour, went to an LVAC boot camp class, and my body gave out (not literally, just tired). Skipped out 10 minutes early, after only 50 minutes, couldn't take anymore. The running wiped me out. Skipped out ChaLean in order to sleep two hours instead of one and making it up today instead of the rest day and then continuing as normal tomorrow.
Tomorrow (well, later today, it's 2:27a) going to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Lake Las Vegas and taking a spinning and a core class and then going biking in the Irongirl course, where I'll be doing the Sprint Triathlon in May. Going to try to do the actual course for training (running/biking/swimming).
I found out something today. Stamina doesn't translate across activities. Running stamina is different from swimming stamina is different from biking stamina, and you have to do each thing that you want to build stamina in.
Two days of taking the endurance gel and I think it does help with the endurance. Doesn't enhance my performance but I don't feel as tired during class, and because of that I can go harder, and feel more tired AFTER class.
This week back to 1k+ caloric deficits per day but keeping it as close to 1k as possible (1010 yesterday).
Less than two weeks until my monthly measurements. Can't wait. Weight holding steady at 149-150 lbs, lowest of 146.5 on 3/1. I don't really care about that number anymore. I care about how I look and about what I can do. Starting a weights routine on Monday.
They say not to measure yourself with others and only work on going as hard as you can yourself. But I measure myself with others. But when I do that I don't see others as There's Bobby or This is how I'm doing in relation to Cindy. I view A mile in 6 minutes, or 50 Jumping Jacks straight or Fast Runner or Heavy Lifter. Nameless, just their fitness level. And I use that as a yardstick, especially in boot camp. Helps me see progress. And I have to be #1 because if I'm not that means there's another goal to be reached. Once I'm #1 there's two option, separate myself from #2 as much as possible or find another fitness endeavor where I'm last again. But I never make it to #1, I tend to go searching for something more difficult way before that, at least it has been that way so far.
So it really doesn't matter WHO it is, it's WHAT they can do, and how I measure against that, and whether there's progress. And today at the gym I noticed I'm not the skinniest but I'm in pretty good shape now, nothing spectacular, but I'm not the worst shape anymore. There's actually people in worse shape than I am (fitness-wise) and that just blows my mind. I've never experienced that before. And it's weird. It's like hey they stopped and I'm still going, and that's not the way it goes, it goes I stop first before everybody else. My whole life. I have pretty much been not only in the lower end, but LAST pretty much in anything physical. So this is definitely something new, unexpected, and unexplored territory. Now I want to be the last one standing. I want to run so fast the next person in boot camp, whoever that is, is five minutes behind me. I don't want to be in decent shape, I want to be in extraordinary shape. I want Michael Phelp's body (in female form). And what's weird is that now I see my body responding to the running and the weights and the swimming and how it just keeps getting better and better and it just motivates me to go harder and harder and push it even farther each time. It's like now I can REALLY move.
I want to share something I wrote and put on Facebook. I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet, have played around with the idea to submit it to psychology and mental health scholarly journals.
Psychological effects of significant weight loss on an adult woman.Share
Wed at 9:47pm
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by: Debbie Eidelman
http://fitdeb.blogspot.com
My name's Debbie, and I wanted to share my experiences in losing 66 lbs in 8.5 months (79 lbs lighter than heaviest weight; these numbers include pounds of muscle gained). I want to focus on the psychological aspects. And I want to do this because we all know the psychological benefits of exercise - enhances mood, battles depression, increases endorphins, etc. - but no one really talks about other psychological changes that occur, and I want to touch on them.
I will jump from topic to topic, as there's various subjects I want to cover. And I'm a writer at heart so I use a lot of analogies and imagery. Writing with flair, if you will, so don't take everything here literally. I write in a stream-of-thought style, so I'll be jumping from topic to topic.
I want to start with mentioning that I have never been a normal weight my whole entire life, not even in infancy, always overweight or mostly obese. I think there's a huge difference in being skinny, gaining weight, then losing it versus never having been a normal weight your whole entire life. And these past couple of weeks it happened. You gradually lose weight but there really comes a point in time when you start feeling sometimes the smallest inkling that you may not be fat anymore. It happened sometime in these past couple of weeks, a definitely change, but mostly a "feeling" rather than something tangible. But it's really like you wake up suddenly and you're 31 and you're not fat anymore, for the first time in your life. And you can move for the first time in your life and you don't want to stop. You want to experience this new body and feel what it's capable of. So I think it's very important to keep this in mind. Also, it hasn't been a year since I started working out (8.5 months) so I'm coming up on some events for the first time since I started losing weight.
It has been brought to my attention these past couple of days that I dress and act fat, and that's how this paper came about. It has come from more than one source. They point to my baggy sweats (Small is too baggy and Extra Small doesn't fit yet, so I'm kind of stuck). And I realized it was true. I realized this right around yesterday night. My body and my mind haven't caught up to the fact that I'm not fat anymore. I still stand, walk, and handle my body the way a fat person does. I still wear baggy clothes the way a fat person does. And I still think the way a fat person does.
I came across some "fat thinking" a few weeks ago. My work participates in Corporate Challenge (a bunch of companies get together and compete in different events once a year). I've participated for years but I always did chess because I've never been able to participate in the physical events. So someone asks me if I'm participating this year and I say yes and they ask in what and I say chess of course. And as soon as I said that I thought to myself, hey, I can do the 5K also! So I signed up for every physical non-skill event they had, about 7-8 (i.e. kayaking and running vs. soccer and basketball).
And someone asked me if I was ready to wear skinny clothes. And you know what, no, I'm not. I think there's part of me that is finally realizing that I'm really going to be skinny in the near future, and that part of me is scared, because they have to let the fat part go, and it's not ready yet. Part of me realizes there's nothing I can do to stop myself from getting skinny and that it's going to happen and it's going to happen soon, and it's terrified. I will never be fat again, I just know that. And what people may not realize is that you wake up one day and you're 31 and you have to lose your identity. Weight is a huge part of our identity, and I have to give up an identity I've had my whole life and learn how to live thin. And it's not easy.
And it finally dawned on me what it is that I need to do, and that is kill Fat Debbie. I have to take someone I've lived with my whole life, shared every life experience with, and let her go forever. It's like if someone you know was dying from a slow terminal illness. You know it's going to happen but you want to prolong it as long as possible. I want to call myself fat as long as I possibly can without being mentally unhealthy. I still have rolls, and part of me wants to think of myself as fat as long as I can. People call me skinny and I don't want that. I'm not skinny. I don't want to be skinny yet. I'm not done being fat inside. I'm being asked to stop being who I've been for 31 years, and it's hard. People don't realize what a psychological and emotional toll it is to give up your identity and find a new one. Because I have to literally learn how to be thin. How to think thin, how to walk thin, how to sit thin, how to lay thin, how to talk think, how to be thin. It's an acquired skill. If you want to know how I started exercising and the backstory visit the blog, because I really want to keep this on this specific topic. But for me exercising and eating right have become a part of life and the weight loss and muscle gain kind of just happen from that, but I'm not going to stop exercising or eating right, so the "transformation" is going to keep happening as I lose the rest of the fat and then gain muscle. But for reasons that I cover in the blog I really feel like someone else chose this journey for me and I exercise because someone else chose that for me. In other words, I don't view it as a choice, but as something that I do just because it was decided for me. So really the weight loss and the changes accompanying it are not my choice either. So I have to deal with these changes as best I can because I have no control over whether they happen or not.
And I've come to realize that fat comforts me. I like fat. It's what I know. It's like snuggling with your favorite blanket. I think if I walked into a room and there were a bunch of fat people gathered around each other and a group of thin people, I'd go with the fat people. It's like some people would cluster by race or nationality or gender or anything that makes them feel like they "belong" to a group. Fat people are "my people." It's almost as if since I can't be fat myself (because remember, I'm not choosing to exercise or lose weight), at least I can be around people who are. And that comforts me and makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
So no, I'm not ready to be Skinny Debbie. Because once I say goodbye to Fat Debbie I can never see her again, and I tear up inside when I think about that. It's like someone I've spent my whole life with was in the cusp of dying. I'm not ready to let Fat Debbie go. It's a huge loss that I know I will have to face soon, but I'm holding on to it as long as I can. So I'm not ready to call myself skinny or normal weight (I'll settle for Chubby or better yet if you want to make me feel good right now agree that I'm fat and you'll be my best friend) just yet or wear skinny clothes just yet. Because if I wear skinny clothes that means I'm Skinny Debbie and that means Fat Debbie is dead, and that's sad. I'm not emotionally or psychologically ready. I will be, the same way that I will find a way to be skinny, but not yet. Because as soon as I become Skinny Debbie, that's when Fat Debbie dies.
And I also know that people that knew Fat Debbie will always feel like closer friends that anyone that meets me for the first time once I'm Skinny Debbie. It's like we both knew someone who died and we can share that with each other. I will always feel a closer bond with anyone who "knew me then." Like that's the real me, not this whole Skinny Debbie nonsense.
I've been paying very close attention to my psychological state through this whole transformation. I took 13 graduate classes in Marriage and Family Therapy and I was going to be a therapist until I realized that I sucked at it, but I know enough about mental health to monitor myself. And one thing I noticed is that the skinnier I got, the more disatisfied I was with my body. I hated how I looked at 170 lbs more than I did at 230 lbs. And it has only been this past couple of weeks, when The Change happened, that I've started the uphill climb to having a positive body image. If you were looking at a graph there'd be a steep decline in body image perception and then a steep uphill. And if you kind of go through this whole physical transformation you can't really leave your mind behind. You have to be healthy all over. So I'm always looking for psychological changes, states of mind, and adjustments I need to make as necessary steps in losing weight, as much so as lifting weights or cardio.
I like to monitor myself psychologically because losing this much weight takes a huge psychological toll so I always need to be in the lookout in case I need outside help, because I'm not about to let myself become mentally unhealthy over this, and sometimes you may need some help, so if I ever need someone to help me cope with being skinny or not being fat, I'll bring them in, but haven't had to do that yet. But you have to be aware of all this and the reason I'm able to do it without outside help is that I think and monitor and adjust daily (and I guess all the mental health training). So there's a constant need of psychological self-evaluation or evaluation by an outside party to make sure your inside keeps up with your outside.
And then there's the whole deal with changing or remaining the same. I am totally different and totally the same at the same time. My soul's the same, but my outlook of life, energy, spirit, are so much more enhanced. When I started this I hoped I wouldn't change inside and soon realized that was impossible. And I'm always doing self-checks to make sure I don't become someone I hate. There's a fat person, what's the first thing that comes into my mind? There's someone who wants to lose weight but won't exercise, how do I feel about them? Just making sure I never look down on anyone because of their motivation or weight, because I never want to become that person. And I've been pleased so far that I don't seem to be headed in that direction.
And then there's the whole looking in the mirror part. I want to be a fitness instructor and they tell you to focus on others instead of admiring yourself in the mirror. And I find myself drawn to looking at myself in the mirror while I take group classes at the gym, but it's more of a wonder kind of thing, like hey, I may be skinny. I can move. It's like when a baby discovers themselves in the mirror. They realize that's them looking back at them. I have a feeling that's Debbie looking back at me. But it's a Debbie I don't know, and a Debbie I have to get to know, and right now I'm just at the point where I just want to look at her. So maybe that's why I shouldn't be an instructor yet, until I become Skinny Debbie and I put two and two together and realize that the person who looks back at me from the mirror all skinny is me. Because it hasn't clicked yet. And no, I don't have dissociative disorder (formerly called multiple personality disorder), it's just a good way to explain it.
I think it's important to talk about all of this because these changes are not really talked about when you lose weight, and I had to find out about all of them just by trial and error. It's really cool to experience all this and to see the psychological changes that occur when losing a significant amount of weight, because it underscores the complexity and wonder of the human condition.
[Picture of Fat Debbie]
Then I added the following comment:
Sooooo.... IT happened. I wrote that, went to bed yesterday, woke up this morning, went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and went Hi. Wearing shorts in public in the first time like forever and a tight shirt. Will post pictures later. Teaching myself to stand up straight, sit with a flat back, etc. But there have been so many things that have happened that have felt like they have happened on a schedule that I think that article was my one last goodbye and my last opportunity to catch all that in writing before it was gone. So that picture up there is almost like the one you'd see in an obituary lol Good bye, dear friend, and thanks for all the memories. Time to forge ahead and create new ones.
Have worn shorts since, and only put on the sweats to come sit for eight hours behind the desk at work. Going to get me some thight clothes this weekend. I'm getting to enjoy it. Bought a Medium bathing suit and it fits great, and you can see my whole huge stomach with it (hey, work in progress).
But I really think I wrote that to kind of encapsulate all that before moving on. Now I look at thin people, how they stand, how they move, and I copy them to teach my body how to be thin. It really doesn't know how. Like it doesn't know it doesn't have to hunch over all the time now, and my mind doesn't know that it doesn't have to hide my body anymore.
So a lot of changes happening lately.
Wrap up: It's Monday night but I wanted to put Saturday and Sunday here. On Saturday I went to the Ritz-Carlton in Lake Las Vegas. The area is just breathtakingly beautiful, the kind of scenery that makes you glad to be alive so that you can be driving through it. Met a friend there and she signed me in to the spa/fitness center. There's a small weights and cardio machines area and a very small group fitness room with about 7 or so bikes. Took a spin class (classes are about 45 minutes long there). It seemed harder than usual so I don't know if it was the bikes or something else, I'm hopefully not in worse shape than last time I took Dallas 3.5 weeks ago. I was slower than usual. Then a core class in which I realized that for the first time I could lay down, raise my legs, and PUT THEM TOGETHER all the way up. That was a great feeling to be able to do that. And I also was able to for the first time sit and raise both my legs and arms at the same time. After I wrap up these two days I will go into more detail about the effect of these things in next week's first entry.
After both classes we went biking. Had my clip pedals and tried putting on the biking shoes on them. Put the right one in, then went for the left, tipped to the right, fell hard, hit my helmet HARD on the floor, would not have been good if I had not been wearing a helmet, I have a rule, if I don't have a helmet on secured, I don't mount the bike, not even to cruise to the end of the driveway. Tipped three more times but my friend realized that if I have a shoe clipped and a shoe free I will tip towards the clipped shoe EVERY ... SINGLE ... TIME ... and caught me. Gave up and put on my regular shoes. I noticed in spinning classes that you do get a sense of where the bike ends and your body begins and there is such a thing as getting to know the bike. So on Sunday I switched the clip pedals with cage pedals, which are pedals that have a little plastic thing that you put your feet into and then a strip that secures it, I keep it loose, feeling of having your foot trapped but easier to free. And oh yeah, scraped my knee, leg, and elbow with the fall and strained the left side of my neck, and it was very hard to do sit ups the next day on Monday. And we also raised the seat to the correct height so my legs have a slight bent when my feet are on the pedals but they barely reach when they are off the pedal so I have to learn to mount and dismount forward off the seat instead of to the sides, still don't have the handle of that, what I do now is cage one foot then use the tiptoes of the other one to scooter myself forward a bit then cage the other one, while being on the seat. Work in progress. So since we're still on Saturday, used my regular shoes on clip pedals but they're so narrow I couldn't get a good grip with my shoes so we didn't bike much. Went home and did my ChaLean at night and that was it for the day.
On Sunday I took the day off of exercise but did do the ChaLean, pretty uneventful day, watched The Hurt Locker (great movie). Ate up to what I burned. Want to see if that shakes things up a bit.
And that was the week.
SATURDAY MORNING - Haven't written since Tuesday. Starting today going to make it a priority to write SOMEthing every day. Because I forget what we do in boot camp and the days mesh together. Wednesday was leg day so just various leg exercises and Thursday was arms day. Friday we ran a rocky terrain for about 50 minutes with some hill work. I can run fast down pavement now, and I couldn't do that three weeks ago. And I'm not the last one anymore on pretty much any day. I can certainly see progress.
I still have to learn to run down rocky hills, that's next on the agenda. Have to run straight down and maybe a bit in a diagonal instead of sideways, because that's how people fall.
Went swimming for an hour after boot camp, and loved it. Training for the triathlon. Then went home, rested for an hour, went to an LVAC boot camp class, and my body gave out (not literally, just tired). Skipped out 10 minutes early, after only 50 minutes, couldn't take anymore. The running wiped me out. Skipped out ChaLean in order to sleep two hours instead of one and making it up today instead of the rest day and then continuing as normal tomorrow.
Tomorrow (well, later today, it's 2:27a) going to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Lake Las Vegas and taking a spinning and a core class and then going biking in the Irongirl course, where I'll be doing the Sprint Triathlon in May. Going to try to do the actual course for training (running/biking/swimming).
I found out something today. Stamina doesn't translate across activities. Running stamina is different from swimming stamina is different from biking stamina, and you have to do each thing that you want to build stamina in.
Two days of taking the endurance gel and I think it does help with the endurance. Doesn't enhance my performance but I don't feel as tired during class, and because of that I can go harder, and feel more tired AFTER class.
This week back to 1k+ caloric deficits per day but keeping it as close to 1k as possible (1010 yesterday).
Less than two weeks until my monthly measurements. Can't wait. Weight holding steady at 149-150 lbs, lowest of 146.5 on 3/1. I don't really care about that number anymore. I care about how I look and about what I can do. Starting a weights routine on Monday.
They say not to measure yourself with others and only work on going as hard as you can yourself. But I measure myself with others. But when I do that I don't see others as There's Bobby or This is how I'm doing in relation to Cindy. I view A mile in 6 minutes, or 50 Jumping Jacks straight or Fast Runner or Heavy Lifter. Nameless, just their fitness level. And I use that as a yardstick, especially in boot camp. Helps me see progress. And I have to be #1 because if I'm not that means there's another goal to be reached. Once I'm #1 there's two option, separate myself from #2 as much as possible or find another fitness endeavor where I'm last again. But I never make it to #1, I tend to go searching for something more difficult way before that, at least it has been that way so far.
So it really doesn't matter WHO it is, it's WHAT they can do, and how I measure against that, and whether there's progress. And today at the gym I noticed I'm not the skinniest but I'm in pretty good shape now, nothing spectacular, but I'm not the worst shape anymore. There's actually people in worse shape than I am (fitness-wise) and that just blows my mind. I've never experienced that before. And it's weird. It's like hey they stopped and I'm still going, and that's not the way it goes, it goes I stop first before everybody else. My whole life. I have pretty much been not only in the lower end, but LAST pretty much in anything physical. So this is definitely something new, unexpected, and unexplored territory. Now I want to be the last one standing. I want to run so fast the next person in boot camp, whoever that is, is five minutes behind me. I don't want to be in decent shape, I want to be in extraordinary shape. I want Michael Phelp's body (in female form). And what's weird is that now I see my body responding to the running and the weights and the swimming and how it just keeps getting better and better and it just motivates me to go harder and harder and push it even farther each time. It's like now I can REALLY move.
I want to share something I wrote and put on Facebook. I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet, have played around with the idea to submit it to psychology and mental health scholarly journals.
Psychological effects of significant weight loss on an adult woman.Share
Wed at 9:47pm
Edit Note
Delete
by: Debbie Eidelman
http://fitdeb.blogspot.com
My name's Debbie, and I wanted to share my experiences in losing 66 lbs in 8.5 months (79 lbs lighter than heaviest weight; these numbers include pounds of muscle gained). I want to focus on the psychological aspects. And I want to do this because we all know the psychological benefits of exercise - enhances mood, battles depression, increases endorphins, etc. - but no one really talks about other psychological changes that occur, and I want to touch on them.
I will jump from topic to topic, as there's various subjects I want to cover. And I'm a writer at heart so I use a lot of analogies and imagery. Writing with flair, if you will, so don't take everything here literally. I write in a stream-of-thought style, so I'll be jumping from topic to topic.
I want to start with mentioning that I have never been a normal weight my whole entire life, not even in infancy, always overweight or mostly obese. I think there's a huge difference in being skinny, gaining weight, then losing it versus never having been a normal weight your whole entire life. And these past couple of weeks it happened. You gradually lose weight but there really comes a point in time when you start feeling sometimes the smallest inkling that you may not be fat anymore. It happened sometime in these past couple of weeks, a definitely change, but mostly a "feeling" rather than something tangible. But it's really like you wake up suddenly and you're 31 and you're not fat anymore, for the first time in your life. And you can move for the first time in your life and you don't want to stop. You want to experience this new body and feel what it's capable of. So I think it's very important to keep this in mind. Also, it hasn't been a year since I started working out (8.5 months) so I'm coming up on some events for the first time since I started losing weight.
It has been brought to my attention these past couple of days that I dress and act fat, and that's how this paper came about. It has come from more than one source. They point to my baggy sweats (Small is too baggy and Extra Small doesn't fit yet, so I'm kind of stuck). And I realized it was true. I realized this right around yesterday night. My body and my mind haven't caught up to the fact that I'm not fat anymore. I still stand, walk, and handle my body the way a fat person does. I still wear baggy clothes the way a fat person does. And I still think the way a fat person does.
I came across some "fat thinking" a few weeks ago. My work participates in Corporate Challenge (a bunch of companies get together and compete in different events once a year). I've participated for years but I always did chess because I've never been able to participate in the physical events. So someone asks me if I'm participating this year and I say yes and they ask in what and I say chess of course. And as soon as I said that I thought to myself, hey, I can do the 5K also! So I signed up for every physical non-skill event they had, about 7-8 (i.e. kayaking and running vs. soccer and basketball).
And someone asked me if I was ready to wear skinny clothes. And you know what, no, I'm not. I think there's part of me that is finally realizing that I'm really going to be skinny in the near future, and that part of me is scared, because they have to let the fat part go, and it's not ready yet. Part of me realizes there's nothing I can do to stop myself from getting skinny and that it's going to happen and it's going to happen soon, and it's terrified. I will never be fat again, I just know that. And what people may not realize is that you wake up one day and you're 31 and you have to lose your identity. Weight is a huge part of our identity, and I have to give up an identity I've had my whole life and learn how to live thin. And it's not easy.
And it finally dawned on me what it is that I need to do, and that is kill Fat Debbie. I have to take someone I've lived with my whole life, shared every life experience with, and let her go forever. It's like if someone you know was dying from a slow terminal illness. You know it's going to happen but you want to prolong it as long as possible. I want to call myself fat as long as I possibly can without being mentally unhealthy. I still have rolls, and part of me wants to think of myself as fat as long as I can. People call me skinny and I don't want that. I'm not skinny. I don't want to be skinny yet. I'm not done being fat inside. I'm being asked to stop being who I've been for 31 years, and it's hard. People don't realize what a psychological and emotional toll it is to give up your identity and find a new one. Because I have to literally learn how to be thin. How to think thin, how to walk thin, how to sit thin, how to lay thin, how to talk think, how to be thin. It's an acquired skill. If you want to know how I started exercising and the backstory visit the blog, because I really want to keep this on this specific topic. But for me exercising and eating right have become a part of life and the weight loss and muscle gain kind of just happen from that, but I'm not going to stop exercising or eating right, so the "transformation" is going to keep happening as I lose the rest of the fat and then gain muscle. But for reasons that I cover in the blog I really feel like someone else chose this journey for me and I exercise because someone else chose that for me. In other words, I don't view it as a choice, but as something that I do just because it was decided for me. So really the weight loss and the changes accompanying it are not my choice either. So I have to deal with these changes as best I can because I have no control over whether they happen or not.
And I've come to realize that fat comforts me. I like fat. It's what I know. It's like snuggling with your favorite blanket. I think if I walked into a room and there were a bunch of fat people gathered around each other and a group of thin people, I'd go with the fat people. It's like some people would cluster by race or nationality or gender or anything that makes them feel like they "belong" to a group. Fat people are "my people." It's almost as if since I can't be fat myself (because remember, I'm not choosing to exercise or lose weight), at least I can be around people who are. And that comforts me and makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
So no, I'm not ready to be Skinny Debbie. Because once I say goodbye to Fat Debbie I can never see her again, and I tear up inside when I think about that. It's like someone I've spent my whole life with was in the cusp of dying. I'm not ready to let Fat Debbie go. It's a huge loss that I know I will have to face soon, but I'm holding on to it as long as I can. So I'm not ready to call myself skinny or normal weight (I'll settle for Chubby or better yet if you want to make me feel good right now agree that I'm fat and you'll be my best friend) just yet or wear skinny clothes just yet. Because if I wear skinny clothes that means I'm Skinny Debbie and that means Fat Debbie is dead, and that's sad. I'm not emotionally or psychologically ready. I will be, the same way that I will find a way to be skinny, but not yet. Because as soon as I become Skinny Debbie, that's when Fat Debbie dies.
And I also know that people that knew Fat Debbie will always feel like closer friends that anyone that meets me for the first time once I'm Skinny Debbie. It's like we both knew someone who died and we can share that with each other. I will always feel a closer bond with anyone who "knew me then." Like that's the real me, not this whole Skinny Debbie nonsense.
I've been paying very close attention to my psychological state through this whole transformation. I took 13 graduate classes in Marriage and Family Therapy and I was going to be a therapist until I realized that I sucked at it, but I know enough about mental health to monitor myself. And one thing I noticed is that the skinnier I got, the more disatisfied I was with my body. I hated how I looked at 170 lbs more than I did at 230 lbs. And it has only been this past couple of weeks, when The Change happened, that I've started the uphill climb to having a positive body image. If you were looking at a graph there'd be a steep decline in body image perception and then a steep uphill. And if you kind of go through this whole physical transformation you can't really leave your mind behind. You have to be healthy all over. So I'm always looking for psychological changes, states of mind, and adjustments I need to make as necessary steps in losing weight, as much so as lifting weights or cardio.
I like to monitor myself psychologically because losing this much weight takes a huge psychological toll so I always need to be in the lookout in case I need outside help, because I'm not about to let myself become mentally unhealthy over this, and sometimes you may need some help, so if I ever need someone to help me cope with being skinny or not being fat, I'll bring them in, but haven't had to do that yet. But you have to be aware of all this and the reason I'm able to do it without outside help is that I think and monitor and adjust daily (and I guess all the mental health training). So there's a constant need of psychological self-evaluation or evaluation by an outside party to make sure your inside keeps up with your outside.
And then there's the whole deal with changing or remaining the same. I am totally different and totally the same at the same time. My soul's the same, but my outlook of life, energy, spirit, are so much more enhanced. When I started this I hoped I wouldn't change inside and soon realized that was impossible. And I'm always doing self-checks to make sure I don't become someone I hate. There's a fat person, what's the first thing that comes into my mind? There's someone who wants to lose weight but won't exercise, how do I feel about them? Just making sure I never look down on anyone because of their motivation or weight, because I never want to become that person. And I've been pleased so far that I don't seem to be headed in that direction.
And then there's the whole looking in the mirror part. I want to be a fitness instructor and they tell you to focus on others instead of admiring yourself in the mirror. And I find myself drawn to looking at myself in the mirror while I take group classes at the gym, but it's more of a wonder kind of thing, like hey, I may be skinny. I can move. It's like when a baby discovers themselves in the mirror. They realize that's them looking back at them. I have a feeling that's Debbie looking back at me. But it's a Debbie I don't know, and a Debbie I have to get to know, and right now I'm just at the point where I just want to look at her. So maybe that's why I shouldn't be an instructor yet, until I become Skinny Debbie and I put two and two together and realize that the person who looks back at me from the mirror all skinny is me. Because it hasn't clicked yet. And no, I don't have dissociative disorder (formerly called multiple personality disorder), it's just a good way to explain it.
I think it's important to talk about all of this because these changes are not really talked about when you lose weight, and I had to find out about all of them just by trial and error. It's really cool to experience all this and to see the psychological changes that occur when losing a significant amount of weight, because it underscores the complexity and wonder of the human condition.
[Picture of Fat Debbie]
Then I added the following comment:
Sooooo.... IT happened. I wrote that, went to bed yesterday, woke up this morning, went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and went Hi. Wearing shorts in public in the first time like forever and a tight shirt. Will post pictures later. Teaching myself to stand up straight, sit with a flat back, etc. But there have been so many things that have happened that have felt like they have happened on a schedule that I think that article was my one last goodbye and my last opportunity to catch all that in writing before it was gone. So that picture up there is almost like the one you'd see in an obituary lol Good bye, dear friend, and thanks for all the memories. Time to forge ahead and create new ones.
Have worn shorts since, and only put on the sweats to come sit for eight hours behind the desk at work. Going to get me some thight clothes this weekend. I'm getting to enjoy it. Bought a Medium bathing suit and it fits great, and you can see my whole huge stomach with it (hey, work in progress).
But I really think I wrote that to kind of encapsulate all that before moving on. Now I look at thin people, how they stand, how they move, and I copy them to teach my body how to be thin. It really doesn't know how. Like it doesn't know it doesn't have to hunch over all the time now, and my mind doesn't know that it doesn't have to hide my body anymore.
So a lot of changes happening lately.
Wrap up: It's Monday night but I wanted to put Saturday and Sunday here. On Saturday I went to the Ritz-Carlton in Lake Las Vegas. The area is just breathtakingly beautiful, the kind of scenery that makes you glad to be alive so that you can be driving through it. Met a friend there and she signed me in to the spa/fitness center. There's a small weights and cardio machines area and a very small group fitness room with about 7 or so bikes. Took a spin class (classes are about 45 minutes long there). It seemed harder than usual so I don't know if it was the bikes or something else, I'm hopefully not in worse shape than last time I took Dallas 3.5 weeks ago. I was slower than usual. Then a core class in which I realized that for the first time I could lay down, raise my legs, and PUT THEM TOGETHER all the way up. That was a great feeling to be able to do that. And I also was able to for the first time sit and raise both my legs and arms at the same time. After I wrap up these two days I will go into more detail about the effect of these things in next week's first entry.
After both classes we went biking. Had my clip pedals and tried putting on the biking shoes on them. Put the right one in, then went for the left, tipped to the right, fell hard, hit my helmet HARD on the floor, would not have been good if I had not been wearing a helmet, I have a rule, if I don't have a helmet on secured, I don't mount the bike, not even to cruise to the end of the driveway. Tipped three more times but my friend realized that if I have a shoe clipped and a shoe free I will tip towards the clipped shoe EVERY ... SINGLE ... TIME ... and caught me. Gave up and put on my regular shoes. I noticed in spinning classes that you do get a sense of where the bike ends and your body begins and there is such a thing as getting to know the bike. So on Sunday I switched the clip pedals with cage pedals, which are pedals that have a little plastic thing that you put your feet into and then a strip that secures it, I keep it loose, feeling of having your foot trapped but easier to free. And oh yeah, scraped my knee, leg, and elbow with the fall and strained the left side of my neck, and it was very hard to do sit ups the next day on Monday. And we also raised the seat to the correct height so my legs have a slight bent when my feet are on the pedals but they barely reach when they are off the pedal so I have to learn to mount and dismount forward off the seat instead of to the sides, still don't have the handle of that, what I do now is cage one foot then use the tiptoes of the other one to scooter myself forward a bit then cage the other one, while being on the seat. Work in progress. So since we're still on Saturday, used my regular shoes on clip pedals but they're so narrow I couldn't get a good grip with my shoes so we didn't bike much. Went home and did my ChaLean at night and that was it for the day.
On Sunday I took the day off of exercise but did do the ChaLean, pretty uneventful day, watched The Hurt Locker (great movie). Ate up to what I burned. Want to see if that shakes things up a bit.
And that was the week.
