Giving out my number. . . .

I have a new goal. 

Well, it's actually about a month old, but I've been too chickenshit to write it on the blog.

See, with the Challenge over, I need something to keep me moving.

I need something to keep me progressing.

I worked out a whole year before this last challenge.  I saw some pretty good results.  Slowly but surely, the weight was coming off.  Six months after my last baby was born -- June, 2008 --I went to the doctor and stepped on the scale.

It said X98.

I am going to pretend that you have no idea which integer the X represents.  I know that you know that it's a whole number between 1 and 3, but you are too polite to notice.  Thanks.  I appreciate it.  You know how Kirstie Alley lost a bunch of weight after dancing with the stars and told everyone she was 105 when she was really more like 140?  I totally get that.

When I started working out with V Fit in July 2010 I was at X77. In 2 years, I dropped 21 lbs.

By the time the last challenge started, I was down to X59. In 1 year of working out harder than I ever have in my life, I was down 18 lbs.

More importantly, of course, I had dropped blood pressure significantly, stabilized my blood sugar and was no longer considered pre-diabetic. I was also very strong and people started telling me how great I looked.

To some people, 18 lbs sounds like a lot of weight.  For me, it was less than 10% of my total body weight. 

When we started 2011's challenge, I wanted to have an impact.  I wanted to win dammit!

So I went to weightfuckingwatchers and worked out harder than before.

Ninety days after the challenge, I was at X44. I had lost 15 lbs.

Amazing the difference those annoying little 15 lbs made.

My clothes, which were getting baggy, simply did not fit anymore.  People who hadn't seen me in a long time really noticed a difference.  One friend thought I lost 100 lbs.  He wasn't trying to flatter me -- he's not that great a friend.

The fact is, since I'd seen him almost 4 years ago, I had lost 54 lbs.

But now the challenge is over. 

And I want to keep it up.

Not the weightfuckingwatchers part.  I'll be honest -- I quit WFW about a month after I started.  Because I hate it.  (Have I mentioned that before?).  I hated giving them $13 every week just so I could step on their fucking scales.  So I decided to step on my OWN fucking scale and pay myself $10.  I call it Date Watchers because when I meet my goal, we're getting a babysitter.

I do like the concept of losing 15 lbs though.

I like it kinda a lot.

But the thing is, I don't have a very public competition to motivate me.

Until now.

Here is the new goal:

By 2/1/12, I will be down to at least 229 by working out 5 or more times a week and eating at least 7 servings of fruits and vegetables a day.

I did it.  I said the number. 

Now everyone knows what I weigh.

I know you knew it already, but jeez.  Seeing it in writing, it looks so. . . .big.

Big in that 229 is still a big number. 

But 15 lbs is even bigger.   

WHY I hate Weight Watchers

I am on Weight Watchers.

I hate it.

Everyone knows I am on Weight Watchers and everyone knows I hate it.

Everyone also thinks that I should just shut my big mouth and quit whining about it, even though everyone is too nice to actually say that to me.

I need to explain WHY I hate Weight Watchers.

I hate WW because it is SO gimmicky. Points.  Power Foods.  Stickers, charms, ribbons.  Lifetime memberships.  GAG. 

Also, they treat everyone the same. My cousin recently lost 20 lbs in 3 months with WW.  His wife lost 40 lbs in 13 months using another system.  Know why he lost so much so fast?   Because he is a man & they metabolize fat differently. 

They do. 

I get that there are lots of men who need to lose weight and WW might be a place where they can lose it.  But do you know how much it sucks to be next to a guy who dropped 20 lbs in 3 months when it took me 6 months to do it?  The way WW works, they don't really distinguish between men & women.  Men get lots of "oh wows" and women get "keep trying!".

In addition, there is a HUGE difference between someone like me -- who has been fat my whole life and has been over 100 lbs overweight -- and someone who gained 30 lbs after she hit 30.  We both need to lose weight, but I have a different health history, a different emotional experience, a different everything. WW does not recognize those differences. 

Can I tell you how much it annoys me to hear "What worked for me was keeping my fruit cut up in the fridge."  I am happy to hear that the little fruit trick works for you.  But I did not gain 100 lbs because my fucking fruit wasn't cut up.

WW is all about sitting thru stupid meetings to "learn" about how to eat (puhleeze) and then clapping for every lb lost as if it were an achievement.


Weight loss is not an achievement.

It is a metabolic result.

I bet if you polled every fat person you see, each of them would tell you they tried weight watchers at least once. So why are they still fat?


Because WW is not a long term solution.  It only works as long as you work it.  It is not sustainable.  I've said it before, but I have a real problem with a health care system that treats obesity as a character or vanity issue. 

Weight loss is not covered by insurance unless you get a major organ removed.  The US health insurance industry has left treatment of a major health crisis to a group of for-profit companies that are in the business of selling frozen foods, calorie calculators, water bottles and other paraphernalia.

I have been to weight watchers off & on for 40 years. I went to my first WW meeting when I was 5. They made me eat liver, and my mom had to make a different ketchup that I was supposed to eat. It tasted terrible.   My mom felt bad that I had to eat liver & no one else did, so she made everyone eat what I was supposed to eat. 

Mom tried to disguise the disgusting organ meat, so she chopped it in little pieces and mixed it in with spaghetti.  We all cried. 

Then my dad yelled at her for forcing his kids to eat liver.

All because my mom was looking out for me, and trying to get me to do what WW said was right.

I love you mom.

I hate you Weight Watchers.

I was most successful on WW before I got married.  I lost about 30 lbs and went from a size 16 to a size 12.  (Of course, my wedding dress was a size 20 but that's another blog.) 

We went to Hawaii for our honeymoon. I gained 5lbs. When I got back to WW, the meeting leader made me feel as if I had slept with her husband.

I haven't had much success with WW since then -- partly because they moved to this "points" bullshit.  I've joined and quit about 4 or 5 times since I got married.  So why am I back?

Because I know that WW is as effective as anything else out there, and it's pretty affordable. I am cussing my way through it, but I am going to go thru it. Goddamit.

I hope to have success.  I just won't give WW the satisfaction of thinking THEY had anything to do with it.

Because they didn't.

I Don't WANNA!

"The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not. "

Mark Twain

And so I grudgingly went to weight watchers today.  Or, as I like to call it, weight-fucking-watchers.
 
I don't want to.
 
I don't like it.
 
But I am.
 
Last year, when I participated in the fitness challenge, my goal was healthy blood.  Previously, I had high blood pressure and my bloodwork came back dangerously close to diabetic.  I have 3 young children.  Avoiding diabetes is a priority.
 
Today, my blood is great.  Exercise has made an awesome difference.
 
This year, my goal is really good joints. 
 
Kinda makes me sound like a stoner, don't it?  I've never been much of a pot smoker, but if it is good for my knees, maybe I should try it.
 
Or maybe, I will just go to weight-fucking-watchers to help me drop the weight that I haven't dropped with exercise. 
 
Have I mentioned that I HATE weight watchers? 
 
Maybe once.  Or twice.   
 
But weight watchers, with all it's stupid gimmicks, meetings, and products, happens to be very effective.  Which just pisses me off even more.
 
So I went to a meeting today.
 
They have a "new" system.  It's another stupid program where you calculate how  many points you have to eat in a day and then figure out how many points are in everything you eat, and then write everything down.
 
It's gimmicky.  It's stupid.  It's corny.
 
But having a target and writing things down is effective.  That part isn't stupid.
 
The leader - a little old lady who lost 15 pounds on weight watchers 40 years ago --  took me through a chart where she cheerfully said things like "We're going to teach you how to eat healthfully!"  and "You can eat anything you want, as long as you calculate the points!" I restrained myself from announcing that I already know how to eat healthfully, but knowing and doing are two different things.  Instead, I rolled my eyes like a thirteen-year-old through the whole thing.
 
Then she said "And with the new system, all fruits and vegetables are ZERO points!  Isn't that great?!"
 
To which I churlishly replied: "I always knew I didn't get to be a size 24 because I ate too many friggin' bananas".  (I said friggin' because even I object to swearing at old ladies.)
 
On the plus side, I will always have something to kvetch about in my blog.
 
Even tho I don't wanna.
 
 

Maintain-No Gain

There is a new challenge put forth by my awesome employer:

The Holiday Challenge:  Maintain-No Gain.

They say that the average American will gain 8-10 lbs during the holiday season.

Of course I am always above average.

For those of us participating, we weigh in on Friday, then we weigh in AGAIN on January 13.  If we maintain our weight within 2lbs, we get a t-shirt.

I guess if we lose 5 lbs, no t-shirt.  Oh well.

I wonder if I can weigh in naked.  Hmmmm. . . .