I am feeling so fat. How I hoped I’d never have to write those words again. Yet here I am, mired in the same hole I’ve been in so many times before. Getting dressed for work this morning, I pulled on my best black pants, the side zip flat front twills that I bought when I got close to goal weight, the pants that, along with their charcoal grey siblings, garnered me lots of compliments about how skinny I was getting. They were too tight to wear. My spirits sank. Yeah, I could get them zipped, but they pulled unattractively across my thighs and no longer skimmed over my saddlebags but put them on display for all to see. Until that moment, I had been fooling myself about these pounds that have crept back onto my body. I had been telling myself it wasn’t that big a deal. I was still so much lighter than when I’d begun my most recent weight loss journey, and those few pounds I’d regained didn’t make a difference in my health or my appearance. Well, my health probably hasn’t changed, but my appearance sure has. The pants and the mirror told that story all too clearly.
I usually gain weight on the weekends and lose it again during the week– this is true even when I’m in full-on diet mode, since I reallocate my points to have more on the weekends, when I want to indulge, and fewer during the week, when it’s easier to eat less– but this week that’s not really happening. (Yes, I have been on the scale every day, and I’m not too happy about that, either, but I just can’t seem to stop.) Weight that goes on quickly is supposed to come off quickly. It is. It’s supposed to be bloat, mostly, water retention, that will right itself when I get back to my normal weekday eating. No way did I consume an extra 19,250 calories this past weekend, which is what the scale seemed to indicate on Monday morning. Sure, I had cheddar cheese bread with butter and pizza and stix, but it’s not like I had pints of ice cream or pounds of cheese or bags of Cheetoes or boxes of cookies. Monday and Tuesday I went back to normal weekday eating: a Kashi bar for breakfast, a Lean Cuisine for lunch with fresh fruit and veggies on the side, a reasonable (not fried or covered in cheese or sauce) dinner. My weight barely budged.
Yesterday, feeling bummed and in need of a pick me up, I got into the snack cupboard at work and had some cookies. (Yeah, I know, good thinking.) Cookies are not forbidden, but I didn’t exactly made allowances for them, since I ate everything else I’d planned to eat anyway. It would have been easy to eat a lot more cookies than I did, though, so at least I showed some self control. I also worked out last night, even though I was tired and cranky and just wanted to sit on the couch and read quilting books (I’d found a sale online and treated myself to some of the things on my wish list). I picked the wrong tape, though. I did Fat Blaster; the title is so appealing that I always forget how much I hate the workout. It’s almost all aerobics, and it’s one of the tapes the Firm did after the classic series, which means it’s more complicated footwork, and I don’t like either of those things. But– fat blasting– I want me some fat blasting, so I keep doing this tape every so often. It didn’t go well. As often happens, I got so overheated I could have fried eggs on my face, even with the fan blowing right on me and turned up one speed higher than usual. I could never work out at a gym because people would always be asking me if I were okay, figuring anyone with a face that red must have something wrong with her. I got lost during some of the footwork; again, not unusual. I had to modify some of the moves because that big ol’ fibroid pressing on my bladder is an accident waiting to happen during maneuvers like jumping jacks. Those things were all annoying, but the worst part was feeling the fat on my butt and thighs jiggling during the faster sections. I really did not need such a vivid reminder of how far I have to go before I’m no longer sloppy and out of shape. I never feel that way during weight work; when I’m not groaning about how hard it is, I’m feeling strong and capable and virtuous. On the plus side, the workout must have cancelled out the cookies, because I lost just as much weight yesterday as I had in the two days previous.
But I’m still feeling fat. Worse, I’m feeling unmotivated. I’m casting about for excuses. Maybe the Desogen is the problem. Sure, I’ve been taking it for months now and have only been gaining weight I can’t seem to lose again for the last several weeks, but still, couldn’t it be the pill’s fault? Maybe the fibroid is to blame; it might be going through a growth spurt. Granted, it probably didn’t put on five pounds or anything like that, but it could be a contributing factor, right? Could my thyroid be wonky? Mom has a thyroid problem, and we share some of the same genes. Not that I have any other symptoms of a thyroid problem, mind you. I’m just frustrated and looking for something to blame other than my own behavior. I need to go back to tracking every caloric thing I put into my mouth, and I don’t want to. I know it works, but I don’t want to do it. I am going to have to get over that attitude somehow. I’m just getting tired of giving myself the same lecture over and over because I can’t think of what to do that would be different and effective. Get a brain transplant? Move to a country where meaty is good in a woman? Just stop whining and do what I need to do? Hey, there’s an idea.
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