dianaschnuth

I spent the normal amount of money for a clothes shopping trip, but came back with a lot fewer clothes, and nothing that was actually on my agenda. Sheryl talked me into a pair of jeans from Buckle, and I got two tops and a skirt from Torrid (which is no longer totally Hot Topic for Fat Chicks). Alas, I did not get any more work pants, as the ones I tried on were unbearably frumpy. I also didn’t get any more blouses for work, although I’m thinking that I’ll be fine on that front, once I unearth the cold-weather clothes.

I’m having mixed feelings toward my body right now. Don’t misunderstand: I’m still super geeked about dropping a size, and it’s awesome to be feeling bones in places where only a layer of fat existed before. And to be wearing a wedding ring two sizes smaller than my high school class ring. And to have been able to buy pants at a non-specialty store.

But.

Goddamn, I have a long way to go.

My new low-rise jeans reveal the same paunch that I see on other chicks and say, “Why is she wearing that in public? Doesn’t she know that’s too tight?” My more form-fitting shirts remind me that I most certainly do not yet have anything resembling a flat stomach. I feel like the frumpy girl who’s trying SO HARD to look stylish… and almost succeeding. But not quite.

I know, I know — I’ve lost over 60 pounds total. That’s nothing to sneeze at, as they say. But, Jesus Christ, when am I ever going to be done? How long do I have to consciously be eating to lose weight? When do I get to reap the final reward? When do I get to be a normal fucking human being, instead of feeling like the fat chick?

*does some calculations*

Well, shit.

According to my anal-retentive weight-plotting chart, if I keep losing like I have been for the past four months, I should be at my target weight by Valentine’s Day 2009. That makes me feel a lot better, and more focused. I’m almost halfway there!

Push through for another five months, and maybe I’ll have to buy myself a smaller size of too-expensive (but oh-so-stylish) Buckle jeans.

Official weigh-in today shows that I’m less than five pounds away from my 10% goal. I lost 1.2 pounds this week, despite sharing a strawberry rhubarb pie with Aaron at the Fulton County Fair.

This weekend, I was eyeing my Sterilite container full of too-small clothes that were too cool to thrift off. I’d told myself that I wasn’t going to try any of them on until I had dropped another size, just so I wouldn’t be disappointed… but I was curious. So, I pulled the box down from the top of the closet, pulled on an XL girly tee from Wizzywig — and it fit.

OMG. I can haz cute clothes?

The XL girly tees I bought from Threadless aren’t quite fitting the way I’d like them to — the armpits are bunching up a little — but it won’t be long on those. They fit well enough that they’re perfectly serviceable for bumming around the house after work, though.

I can comfortably wear 2XL girly tees from Steve & Barry’s (which is what started this whole process of wondering about my other cute clothes), but I couldn’t find anything terribly awesome to buy last time I was there.

The only thing that’s kind of frustrating is that there’s really no way to target fat loss from particular places on the body, like thighs and upper arms and upper belly. I can exercise them and firm up the muscles underneath, but that won’t burn off the fat on top. So I’ll just have to wait. As a next step to teh cuteness, I’d really love to feel comfortable in non-knee-length shorts.

Maybe by next summer. For now, I’m at least on the right track.

Today I received my 16 Week “Clapping Hands” award for attending 16 weeks of Weight Watchers meetings. This falls under the “eighty percent of success is showing up” category, and I’m not as proud of it as I am the simple star sticker I also received today for losing another five pounds. (Our leader didn’t give out my five-pound star in front of everyone in the meeting, though, since it would clue everyone in about at what pace I’m losing weight. Not that I really care if everyone knows I’m losing about one pound a week.)

I have just over five pounds to lose per the official Weight Watchers scales until I hit my 10% goal — it’s been statistically proven that losing 10% of your body weight can have a major positive impact on your health, and that goal is built right into the WW program.

Slow and steady wins the race and all that… If I ever need a pick-me-up, though, I look back over the past five-plus years and see how far I’ve come:

Thanks to the wonders of blogging (and journaling in general), I can map most of these trends in gains and losses to a particular time in my life: pre-wedding, Atkins, complacency, dieting, unemployment, Weight Watchers. It’s a valuable tool, and I’m glad I’ve been anal-retentive about weighing and charting over the years.

Since I’m a shutterbug, too, I can map photos to all these weights: obese Diana in 2002, post-Atkins Diana in 2004 (still wearing pre-Atkins clothes), almost-obese Diana in 2006, and less-overweight Diana now, in 2008.

Yo-yo dieting? Not exactly. Actually, not at all. I lost 50 pounds — and I still maintain that low-carb diets are a valid way to lose a shit-ton of weight and see the results you need to keep you motivated — and I hovered within a ten-pound range over the course of three or four years. And now I’m back on the wagon and picking up where I left off.

Perspective. I haz it.

I’m starting to step back from myself and see the differences between then and now. It’s surreal, almost.

For instance: when I reach around to scratch my shoulder, there’s a definite lack of a fat layer there. I can feel the boniness of my shoulder blade, and the existence of that little hollow at the top and back of my shoulder area.

Also: when I lay on my side to go to sleep at night, I’ll sometimes wrap one arm around myself and kind of tuck it under my rib area. This rib area is actually starting to feel like ribs, and not like some sort of water balloon or something.

I’ve always had a gut. I think the anatomy of this gut is partially hereditary, being that all the womenfolk in my family have had the same shape of lower-abdominal fatness. Anyway, I was sitting on the john today, and realized (as I had some time on my hands) that my gut is deflating. I actually picked it up as best I could and squished it around and noted that it feels much less dense than it once did. I can still quite easily pinch more than an inch, but now it at least feels like skin with some fat underneath it, rather than a big, dense girl gut.

It’s fun to notice the small things as I lose weight bit by bit. Funny — back in late 2002, I noticed I was getting fat obese when little things caught my attention: like the fact that the fat-roll creases in my love-handles were permanent and only went away with a major side bend, and like the fact that there was no space between my arms and my torso when I stood up straight.

I guess little things can make a big difference — in a good way — if you let them.

I mentioned earlier that I am now at the lowest weight I’ve been in probably ten years. What’s interesting is that I’m actually starting to feel it.

This week, I started actively working out in the evenings again. On Monday, I dug out one of my old PUSH DVDs from two years ago and did a 40-minute full-body strength-training workout. Yesterday, I did a grow-your-own sort of lower body and ab workout (focusing on the muscles that weren’t already sore). Today was Zen, so no workout, although the deep breathing involved in a half hour of zazen really garners some of the same effects, I think.

I’m not sure if it’s my body glomming onto the exercise it’s been craving or what, but I feel taller and thinner this week. Plus, swear to Jebus, I reached up to scratch my upper arm today, and actually felt the definition between my triceps and my deltoids. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed that on me before.

Also: I recorded a video clip of myself yesterday (that’s a different post entirely), and noticed that my face and neck are getting noticeably thinner. I even filmed from what would normally be a horribly unflattering angle for me — basically, up my nose — and the double-chin only flashed into existence once or twice, and only because I was looking for it. For the most part, my face looks more square than round now, and my neck has definition instead of flab. Not much jiggle happening, despite the fact that I was playing “drums.” (More on that later, I promise.)

So. This Weight Watchers thing seems to be coming up roses so far. I’m losing an average of about… *crunches some numbers* …just over a pound a week since the middle of May. Assuming I keep at the same pace, that would put me at my 10% goal by the first day of Autumn. Maybe we’ll see if I can’t step things up a little, and speed up the pace to two pounds a week.

First on the horizon, though: making it successfully through Thursday evening and Friday in Cleveland, at funeral services for Grammie, where there will almost certainly be some sort of comfort food to be had at some point, and not much opportunity for a nice long walk around Lakewood with Aaron. Real life doesn’t re-route itself just because we’re on a diet, though… and Grammie did Weight Watchers herself in the ’70s, and frequently sang its praises, so she’d want us to stay on program. And we will.