I took so long to write this post that it is out of date already! I typed the title last night, two days after seeing that lovely slender single 1 at the front of my weight. 199.5. W-O-W. I cannot remember the last time I weighed less than 200 pounds. 8th grade? Maybe?
My gym teacher that year tried so hard. They all did. Mrs. Gorman, starting in 3rd grade, Mr. Cormier in middle school, looking for ways to get me and the 2 or 3 others like me active, feeling strong. We were pulled out of class for situp races, attempts to do pull ups.
The worst day of the year was Presidential Fitness Day.
Normally, I could distract people (or so I believed) with my wit, intelligence and eagerness to please. But one day a year, all my failings were on display. How many pull-ups can you do? 0. If none, how long can you hang? 3 seconds. How long does it take you to run a mile? Run? I can't even walk a mile. Every year I developed excruciating leg cramps and couldn't either start or finish. Mr. Cormier gave me disbelieving looks, as I would have in his place, but the crazy thing is that I really did have debilitating leg cramps all through those years. I'd cramp the night before and barely be able to walk the next day. Tightly wound much?
Only now has physical activity reached over the cold war divide and tried to become my friend. I feel a bit like I am Reagan, however, and instead of being nice, affable Gorbachev, exercise is more like Breshnev or Putin. Luring me in.
"I wish someone had told me; I said to Jack the other morning after a half-hour on my treadmill, "Everyone always talks about how good exercise is for you, blah blah blah, great skin, toning, heart capacity, etc. But no one ever told me it was good for my mental health. That it kicks out all the anxiety and flushes the knots from my system. I wish I had known!"
Of course, no one I knew exercised. While in college I spent Thanksgiving with a new friend's family. After eating we went for a leisurely hike in the woods around their home. A revelation! Immediately I tried implementing this wonderful new habit in my family. Ha! We are of the sit and smoke ilk, not the trekking with sticks folk.
Somehow here I am, in this place where I have less than 50 pounds to lose. My BMI calculator still lists me as obese, as does the giant impression my butt makes on the edge of the bed, but living people tell me how skinny I am. In aerobics yesterday (how weird to say that), I looked in the mirror and saw chicken legs! To satisfy my BMI, I have 39.5 pounds to go. I'd like to lose 48. Being 150 pounds has been such an impossible dream my whole life. That, and wearing a size 10.
The transition from girl's clothes to women's clothes was one of those moments in life when you didn't see the Mack truck coming. I expected that although I had outgrown all the girl's things I would begin again as tiny in the women's things. That you went from 16 in girls to 2 in women's. Made sense to me. But no, the first pair of shorts I got as a 10 year old were size 12. I was devastated. There was no hiding place for me down there. I was big, even for a woman.
And here I am, closing in on those days again. But this time from a different place, a different state of mind. I am peeling layers, revealing my strength and connecting to my source, to my inner power. It is emotional and scary, but I have been inducted into the trekking with sticks clan and am hoping the specter of physical activity slowly fades from Breshnev into Mr. Rogers. Won't you be my neighbor, exercise?
CURRENT WEIGHT: 198.5
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Perspective
I've gone from feeling ecstatic that I have bones (ribs! a collarbone! hip bones!) to focusing once again on the burbles of flesh left. There are the rolls I can pull from my stomach, the flaps under my arms, the dangly bits of thigh.
An elderly lady friend stopped me the other day to tell me she has been meaning to tell me that of all the people she has known who have undergone dramatic weight loss, my skin is the tightest. I was surprised, though after reflection, I realized that all most people see is my face and that, indeed, has done very well.
The other parts, the ones hidden from the outside world for another good six months, aren't bouncing back as quickly. When I see the wrinkles on my inner thighs I flash first to my mother, since these are how I remember her thighs, and second, to a conversation I had in sixth grade.
I had noticed that when I put my ankle on my opposite knee to cross my legs I had stripes in my skin. I was amazed and pointed out this discovery to my friend, Sarah, who was sitting next to me in band.
"Those are stretch marks," she said, apologetically, and turned back to her music. Needless to say, I flew my foot back to the floor and flushed my embarrassment into my clarinet.
Only now does it occur to me to wonder how on earth she of the giraffe nickname, she the descendant of two of the gangly-folk clan, she could have known about stretch marks. Especially before I, descendant of the can't-leave-your-room obese kind, did.
So here I am, becoming more and more familiar with the impulse that I imagine drives anorexia. Wanting to control, wanting the external image to be perfect. Wanting no one to notice any faults. Never quite being perfect enough.
I celebrate that I have the ab muscles to do the hula hoop and high kicks. I honor that I can see air between my thighs, something I have never-ever, even as a teenager, been able to do. I am overjoyed that I can use my left hand to unclasp my seat belt when I drive in my driveway. That I prefer to take the stairs. These things do still make me marvel. But yet. But yet.
There is also the conversation I recall from around the same time, the one with my aunt. The context is fuzzy and unimportant anyway. To her, it was a funny story. Perhaps I had asked about my father's grandmother. What she looked like, what she was like. What I got was a hearty laugh.
"Well, she was a big woman and when she got old, her flat breasts hung below her waist and bugged the heck out of her. So she rolled them up and tucked them under her arm."
I still shudder.
An elderly lady friend stopped me the other day to tell me she has been meaning to tell me that of all the people she has known who have undergone dramatic weight loss, my skin is the tightest. I was surprised, though after reflection, I realized that all most people see is my face and that, indeed, has done very well.
The other parts, the ones hidden from the outside world for another good six months, aren't bouncing back as quickly. When I see the wrinkles on my inner thighs I flash first to my mother, since these are how I remember her thighs, and second, to a conversation I had in sixth grade.
I had noticed that when I put my ankle on my opposite knee to cross my legs I had stripes in my skin. I was amazed and pointed out this discovery to my friend, Sarah, who was sitting next to me in band.
"Those are stretch marks," she said, apologetically, and turned back to her music. Needless to say, I flew my foot back to the floor and flushed my embarrassment into my clarinet.
Only now does it occur to me to wonder how on earth she of the giraffe nickname, she the descendant of two of the gangly-folk clan, she could have known about stretch marks. Especially before I, descendant of the can't-leave-your-room obese kind, did.
So here I am, becoming more and more familiar with the impulse that I imagine drives anorexia. Wanting to control, wanting the external image to be perfect. Wanting no one to notice any faults. Never quite being perfect enough.
I celebrate that I have the ab muscles to do the hula hoop and high kicks. I honor that I can see air between my thighs, something I have never-ever, even as a teenager, been able to do. I am overjoyed that I can use my left hand to unclasp my seat belt when I drive in my driveway. That I prefer to take the stairs. These things do still make me marvel. But yet. But yet.
There is also the conversation I recall from around the same time, the one with my aunt. The context is fuzzy and unimportant anyway. To her, it was a funny story. Perhaps I had asked about my father's grandmother. What she looked like, what she was like. What I got was a hearty laugh.
"Well, she was a big woman and when she got old, her flat breasts hung below her waist and bugged the heck out of her. So she rolled them up and tucked them under her arm."
I still shudder.
Monday, October 25, 2010
on hobbies
It occurred to me the other day that I have few or no hobbies. In declaring loudly a few months ago that if I ever attempted to sew again, all friends and family should hold an intervention, I officially denounced that excruciating pursuit. My horseback riding days are long past and hopefully coming soon, but are not in the NOW. Playing with my animals is a fun pastime, but a pretty passive activity. They romp, I observe. I used to bake, but those days are over.
Today, it seems, my hobby is my health. What to eat, what kind of exercise to engage in, weighing myself, writing about my weight-loss journey.
When I realized this, the fear was pretty quick to slice into me. If it is a hobby, then it follows that it can fall out of favor, slip from fashion, be replaced with something a bit more slick and shiny.
My hope is that what I've been engaged in this past year is not a passing fancy, but shifting into a new gear, perhaps even replacing the transmission so this vehicle never again slips out of gear into neutral. Perhaps once this shift is solid I will be free to explore new hobbies.
Maybe that time is now. And that is why I am sitting with a laptop at 5am. Maybe this will be the year that novel finds its way out.
Today, it seems, my hobby is my health. What to eat, what kind of exercise to engage in, weighing myself, writing about my weight-loss journey.
When I realized this, the fear was pretty quick to slice into me. If it is a hobby, then it follows that it can fall out of favor, slip from fashion, be replaced with something a bit more slick and shiny.
My hope is that what I've been engaged in this past year is not a passing fancy, but shifting into a new gear, perhaps even replacing the transmission so this vehicle never again slips out of gear into neutral. Perhaps once this shift is solid I will be free to explore new hobbies.
Maybe that time is now. And that is why I am sitting with a laptop at 5am. Maybe this will be the year that novel finds its way out.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
11 in 11
1. Climb Mt. Katahdin
2. Hike to Bomber Falls
3. Take riding lessons
4. Write a novel draft
5. Attend Jackson Hole Writer's Conference
6. Buy a house
7. Eat our chickens
8. Go to the Common Ground Fair
9. Wear size 12
10. Finish denim curtain
11. Write a letter a month. At least.
2. Hike to Bomber Falls
3. Take riding lessons
4. Write a novel draft
5. Attend Jackson Hole Writer's Conference
6. Buy a house
7. Eat our chickens
8. Go to the Common Ground Fair
9. Wear size 12
10. Finish denim curtain
11. Write a letter a month. At least.
WOW
I've developed the habit of weighing myself constantly; totally against the advice of all those who advise us about how to lose weight. But I've become a firm believer in this: weigh yourself constantly and pick the lowest number. You'll feel better.
This week, though; I've been avoiding that white slice of truth on the bathroom floor. Instead of greeting it with excitement, I've been pretending it was part of the floor. For two weeks we have been driving to see specialists. I've missed most of my exercise classes and have been shoving food in my mouth at every available opportunity. Not a recipe for successful weight loss. Plus, I felt weighed down. So, I left well enough alone. I just wasn't ready to see the same red numbers I'd past long ago.
But this morning I decided it was time to face the music. I did my business, tossed the heavy bathrobe on the counter, stepped out of my slippers and stepped up to the plate. 201.5!!
"WOW."
"WO-OW."
"WOW!"
I was floored. I'd LOST weight. Instead of 207, 209 or even 210, like I had been expecting, the digits were in a totally different order. I had to step off and get on again to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. WOW. Not sure how this happened (soup?) but I'm grateful!
This week, though; I've been avoiding that white slice of truth on the bathroom floor. Instead of greeting it with excitement, I've been pretending it was part of the floor. For two weeks we have been driving to see specialists. I've missed most of my exercise classes and have been shoving food in my mouth at every available opportunity. Not a recipe for successful weight loss. Plus, I felt weighed down. So, I left well enough alone. I just wasn't ready to see the same red numbers I'd past long ago.
But this morning I decided it was time to face the music. I did my business, tossed the heavy bathrobe on the counter, stepped out of my slippers and stepped up to the plate. 201.5!!
"WOW."
"WO-OW."
"WOW!"
I was floored. I'd LOST weight. Instead of 207, 209 or even 210, like I had been expecting, the digits were in a totally different order. I had to step off and get on again to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. WOW. Not sure how this happened (soup?) but I'm grateful!
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