Oh, but I am.
This is a boring entry. You should skip it, unless you're really bored. In which case, go play babble or something.
On Saturday, we went shopping (Savers! Yay!) and got two coats, a pair of workout pants, a game (TriBond), and some books.
About a month ago, we weighed ourselves on a scale when we were babysitting. I was around 150, according to that scale. None of the size 12 pants I tried on at Savers fit except the soft grey elastic drawstring pants. Virgil remembers me as being a size 8 when we met, but I remember 6 being "normal."
After shopping on Saturday, we went to the gym for a half-hour workout. After vespers and dinner, we went for another half hour. On Sunday we went for an hour. On Monday evening, I went for an hour while he was in class, and stayed for another half hour while he played basketball. At the beginning of the weekend, I asked him how much I should enter for "weight" when the elliptical and treadmill asked me: 145 was his guess, then 143 starting Sunday.
We went home and stopped at the H—'s and saw their little one and weighed ourselves on the scale: 161+.
Then I was dumb and washed my hair and didn't blow it dry *enough* and the new air conditioning unit wasn't fully spackled in (it is now, as of Tuesday afternoon), so there was a draft. Wet hair (even that [argle!] slightly) plus a draft (even though I didn't notice it at the time) equals (demands) that I am sick when I wake up.
So I didn't go to the gym last night.
I have always been little. I remember in fifth grade being able to fit all of me into a pillowcase. (Brought one to school on the last day to prove it to some doubters who were appropriately impressed.) I have so many hand-me-downs which I no longer fit into. (SO MANY CLOTHINGS) I hate shopping for clothes.
I tell Virgil I am fat. He says, "But we're doing something about it." He doesn't seem to understand that I can hear the "Yes" he isn't saying. (Yes, I've told him this.) He's very practical, but he doesn't understand; I don't think I understand, either. I stayed about a size 8 until I left college (before finishing): I went up to a 10/12. After going back to college, I was definitely a 12. (Ew. Look. I'm *identifying* with the size now.) I don't want to be bigger than that. I don't want to wheeze when I go up two half-flights of stairs. I don't want to not be able to do things (even though I'm too lazy to actually want to do them, like fencing and Irish dancing). I miss looking down at my legs and seeing that line on my calf that means "Here be muscles" and make me miss Colm. And it doesn't help when my husband says he's "also worried" about how much I weigh. What happened to "You're not fat"? (We're dealing with me, here: not a Rational Mind.)
When I first started to gain weight, I thought that it was just a temporary thing, the number didn't matter to me, only how I felt. Last night, though, the number mattered. I remember when 135 was horrifyingly heavy. (Of course, it felt like I'd been to the gym for 1.5 hours and *gained* about 20 pounds, so that was depressing enough, because my mind is weird.)
I like the ideas behind the "Hacker's Diet": If you want to lose weight, eat less. Yes, you can exercise, but that's not going to help you not gain weight: that will help you increase your metabolism, so you can deal with the food you eat better. The Hacker's Diet makes the point that not eating that extra doughnut is so much easier than spending an hour exercising (therefore you should have other goals besides instant weight-loss when you exercise). For instance, I remember burning about 200 calories (on the elliptical, according to that machine and my faulty memory), yet this little packet of cookies (yay! yummy and lenten!) has 250 calories. (I needed something to eat with my vitamin, so I only ate three: half the package.)
Previously, I had realized that if I were going to lose weight, that would mean being hungry. So, by eating less and exercising more (where "more" means "at all"), I would lose weight. Perfect! Except that all my previous "diets" have consisted of "hmm. I should lose weight" and then doing nothing about it; which worked in high school and college, because I was in marching band, fencing, and/or Irish dancing pretty much all the time.
So I need to keep going to the gym. (I'll try to exercise when we're in Florida, too. We leave Friday.) And I need to fill up on good food instead of the snacky things that I want. (How come I can't just automatically want what's good for me?) I wish our fridge was side by side. I bought 4 lbs. of baby carrots, but they're in the bottom, in the drawer, and out of sight. And I only remember them when I'm at work, so what good does that do me?
I'm trying to re-learn fidgeting (and stop telling Virgil that his bothers me). I have one pair of pants that actually fits me (suitable for work and chapel, but not warm weather).
In the big scheme of things, how much does this actually matter? And how come I think about it so much? And, ew, I've become one of those girls who actually cares what she weighs.
The title of the entry is for all those people with the "right answer" of "You're not fat."
On Saturday, we went shopping (Savers! Yay!) and got two coats, a pair of workout pants, a game (TriBond), and some books.
About a month ago, we weighed ourselves on a scale when we were babysitting. I was around 150, according to that scale. None of the size 12 pants I tried on at Savers fit except the soft grey elastic drawstring pants. Virgil remembers me as being a size 8 when we met, but I remember 6 being "normal."
After shopping on Saturday, we went to the gym for a half-hour workout. After vespers and dinner, we went for another half hour. On Sunday we went for an hour. On Monday evening, I went for an hour while he was in class, and stayed for another half hour while he played basketball. At the beginning of the weekend, I asked him how much I should enter for "weight" when the elliptical and treadmill asked me: 145 was his guess, then 143 starting Sunday.
We went home and stopped at the H—'s and saw their little one and weighed ourselves on the scale: 161+.
Then I was dumb and washed my hair and didn't blow it dry *enough* and the new air conditioning unit wasn't fully spackled in (it is now, as of Tuesday afternoon), so there was a draft. Wet hair (even that [argle!] slightly) plus a draft (even though I didn't notice it at the time) equals (demands) that I am sick when I wake up.
So I didn't go to the gym last night.
I have always been little. I remember in fifth grade being able to fit all of me into a pillowcase. (Brought one to school on the last day to prove it to some doubters who were appropriately impressed.) I have so many hand-me-downs which I no longer fit into. (SO MANY CLOTHINGS) I hate shopping for clothes.
I tell Virgil I am fat. He says, "But we're doing something about it." He doesn't seem to understand that I can hear the "Yes" he isn't saying. (Yes, I've told him this.) He's very practical, but he doesn't understand; I don't think I understand, either. I stayed about a size 8 until I left college (before finishing): I went up to a 10/12. After going back to college, I was definitely a 12. (Ew. Look. I'm *identifying* with the size now.) I don't want to be bigger than that. I don't want to wheeze when I go up two half-flights of stairs. I don't want to not be able to do things (even though I'm too lazy to actually want to do them, like fencing and Irish dancing). I miss looking down at my legs and seeing that line on my calf that means "Here be muscles" and make me miss Colm. And it doesn't help when my husband says he's "also worried" about how much I weigh. What happened to "You're not fat"? (We're dealing with me, here: not a Rational Mind.)
When I first started to gain weight, I thought that it was just a temporary thing, the number didn't matter to me, only how I felt. Last night, though, the number mattered. I remember when 135 was horrifyingly heavy. (Of course, it felt like I'd been to the gym for 1.5 hours and *gained* about 20 pounds, so that was depressing enough, because my mind is weird.)
I like the ideas behind the "Hacker's Diet": If you want to lose weight, eat less. Yes, you can exercise, but that's not going to help you not gain weight: that will help you increase your metabolism, so you can deal with the food you eat better. The Hacker's Diet makes the point that not eating that extra doughnut is so much easier than spending an hour exercising (therefore you should have other goals besides instant weight-loss when you exercise). For instance, I remember burning about 200 calories (on the elliptical, according to that machine and my faulty memory), yet this little packet of cookies (yay! yummy and lenten!) has 250 calories. (I needed something to eat with my vitamin, so I only ate three: half the package.)
Previously, I had realized that if I were going to lose weight, that would mean being hungry. So, by eating less and exercising more (where "more" means "at all"), I would lose weight. Perfect! Except that all my previous "diets" have consisted of "hmm. I should lose weight" and then doing nothing about it; which worked in high school and college, because I was in marching band, fencing, and/or Irish dancing pretty much all the time.
So I need to keep going to the gym. (I'll try to exercise when we're in Florida, too. We leave Friday.) And I need to fill up on good food instead of the snacky things that I want. (How come I can't just automatically want what's good for me?) I wish our fridge was side by side. I bought 4 lbs. of baby carrots, but they're in the bottom, in the drawer, and out of sight. And I only remember them when I'm at work, so what good does that do me?
I'm trying to re-learn fidgeting (and stop telling Virgil that his bothers me). I have one pair of pants that actually fits me (suitable for work and chapel, but not warm weather).
In the big scheme of things, how much does this actually matter? And how come I think about it so much? And, ew, I've become one of those girls who actually cares what she weighs.
The title of the entry is for all those people with the "right answer" of "You're not fat."
posted by magda at 10:18 AM
6 Comments:
I weighed myself for the first time in years while browsing at Costco just before Lent. I was quite shocked to learn that I'd gained 60 pounds since I married L. That's about 8 pounds a year. My coworker, who is 3 inches taller than I am, has an ideal weight that is 15 pounds less than me!
I'm doing the eating-less thing, but that's only because it's Lent. I'm afraid of what will happen once Lent is over.
I have lost 10 pounds this Lent, tho, so I guess thats good.
Which is to say, I share your shock and awe at gaining weight and hating excercise. :)
I've been working on losing weight since January. Alana at Morning Coffee recommends this lovely eating style - The Calorie Queens. Basically, the idea is that it takes 12 calories per day per pound to sustain a weight. So, you figure what you want to weigh x12 (14 for men) and that is your caloric intake goal.
Tracking what I eat on Fitday.com, keeping my portion sizes down, learning to not "Graze" when bored, and adding exercise has totally helped me. I'm down 30 lbs.
Good luck!
Me, too! I want to weigh less! I look 5 months pregnant, but I'm not expecting another little one yet. However, I don't want to pay for a gym membership. So, I don't.
Maybe if I get pregnant again then either (a) I'll be really sick and lose a bunch of weight because I can't keep any food down, like last time, or (b) my weight will be okay because I actually will be pregnant so the big belly would just be expected.
Or... maybe that's not a good reason to have another baby.
So, this is why I don't own a scale, and when I see one I do that cross thing with my fingers to ward it off. Okay, seriously, I've either been fat or thought of myself as such since I was in 6th grade. (Cuz when I look at pictures of myself then I think, what was I thinking?) I always used to think I was such a slob and I'd try to lose weight constantly. Size 12 was good for me. There was *one time* that I was down to a 10 or even 8 after I'd spent the summer in Egypt, sweating so hard that I couldn't eat very much and doing hard labor. The weight quickly came back on.
So, I basically hated my body for many years.
I have to say now that began to change when my first baby was born--what a miraculous thing my body could do! But I still hated all the weight I gained and thought if I wasn't so slobby I'd be able to get it off.
In our last semester at Holy Cross, I read an amazing book. It was called Adios, Barbie, but guess who got upset at the title? so now it's called Body Outlaws. I have to say it was one the very few books I can really say changed my life. Now, it's not for people who are all prissy about reading about lesbians, and stuff like that....though you could always just skip those parts--it's a compilation of different authors' stories, and you could just choose the ones who talk about fat issues.
I came to realize that my body is what God gave me. It is naturally fat. Just like some are naturally thin, tall, short, etc. There are lots of different body types out there and fat is one.
Now I just focus on eating a good diet, which when left to my own devices, is a very healthy one which includes good tasting food, and exercising when I feel like it, which I'm surprised to find I enjoy when I don't feel I "should" do it. Today my kids and I walked probably 20 blocks and really enjoyed it, as we incorporated it into other things.
I realize that this isn't exactly the mainstream opinion....which is why I'm sharing it with you. And, I haven't gained any weight since I read that book. Haven't lost, either, but that's okay. :-)
first of all, youre not fat.
second, i understand the feeling, though. i recently went up two sizes rather rapidly. it was the most shocking thing in the world when my clothes, which had previously been kind of loose, were so snug i had to suck in my tummy to fasten them.
so, im going to get back on a vegan diet (plus im exercising), which is how i inadvertently lost a ton of weight very quickly a year ago. i originally started eating vegan for issues of social consciousness, but a cool side effect was rapid weight loss. the beauty of it is that i was never hungry -- i was eating twice as much as i used to and losing weight. nifty. but after a couple of months, though, i started missing things (like cheeseburgers), and i eased back into animal products slowly, and kept the weight off until recently.
so, now im mentally preparing myself for another foray into meatlessness :)
g'night!
Ick. I'm 9 months pregnant, so I guess I shouldn't feel too horrible about my weight. But it was quite depressing to learn at my last dr.'s checkup that I weigh more than my husband. YIKES! Now, granted he's as skinny as a stick (and Lent isn't helping), but still, he's almost a foot taller than me!
Best of luck with everything, Magda!
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