This Blog is done HAPPY BIRTHDAY K!!!!

So for those of you who didn't realize it I am done with this blog.  I set out to lose an ungodly amount of weight and I did.  I am done with this stage of my life, and now on to my new obsession.

But...there are a few more things I want to say.

When I started I was in the 99% in weight.  Putting that in perspective one in every hundred people was heavier then I was.  Hmm.  I know that is hard to fathom, at least for me it is, but it is done.  I am done.  We are done.  And now I am in the 30%.  That works just fine for me.

I am done in my head, according to my scale (which in my opinion is the only thing that counts) I am in my weight range.  But after talking to the Doc she feels I should actually get to my "normal weight" BMI.  I was a little surprised since she had told me not that long ago that she felt I was at normal weight.  Then I got to thinking maybe it just for the statistics.  But for me if I stayed at this weight for the rest of my life I would be happy.

I was told by everyone (well not T2 and T1) but everyone else that it couldn't be done.  T1 said I could do it if I just went and got weighed in on a weekly basis.  T2 said I could do it if I wanted to.  I guess I wanted.  I guess T1 was right too.

As T2 and I was discussing there wasn't a single catalyst that led me to this journey.  I didn't wake up one morning and say this is it, I woke up almost every morning saying that.  I would be lucky if I stayed on the diet for a day, and really really lucky if I stayed on it a week.

I was too ashamed to join a weight loss group.  I didn't want to be weighed.  I didn't want anyone else to know how much I weighed.  I knew - I know that if I have structure I can do almost anything.  I knew I just needed someone telling me I could eat this and I couldn't eat that.  I wanted choices taken out of my hands.  I didn't want to have to "work" that way at losing weight.  It isn't that I can't make choices, but when you are trying to do something so major, you want to make it as easy as possible.

I had thought about going away for a year, to a "fat" camp, have them pick my exercise and food, and I just have to show up.  I romanticized  about it.  How easy it would be to not worry about anything but getting healthy.  I wouldn't have to fight temptation, I wouldn't have to worry about what to eat, I wouldn't have to worry about what exercise to do, they would tell me everything, and when I was done I would be the perfect size and in the perfect health.  Still when I think about it, I still find it appealing.  Wouldn't it be fun.

But I would miss my doggies, my husband, my friends, my family (not necessarily in that order) and it just wasn't the "right" way for me to do it.

Surgery - well the doctor told me I couldn't have the surgery until I lost 10% of my weight or some such thing.  If I could lose 10% of my weight why couldn't I just lose it all.  I wasn't going to go on a diet to lose weight so I could have weight lose surgery - it didn't make sense to me.  Plus I worried about eating.  I like to eat, and the thought that I couldn't eat whatever I wanted ever again made surgery a very bad idea for me.

They have told us not to make food  a reward.  That I found is not the right way for me to look at it.  For me I like food.  There is nothing better then sitting down with my favorite drink and reading the latest news, or whatever I am doing to relax.  Certain foods are such a treat.  And I plan to enjoy those treats just as I would any other treat.  Food is not BAD.  Fattening food is not BAD.  It is just how you eat it that makes it bad.  Some fattening foods I can eat and control others I can't, so I won't eat them.  But that doesn't mean maybe someday I will be able to have a bowl of icecream.  Just not in my immediate future.

I was told not to do the program it wasn't healthy, it would only give me a short term success like putting a bandaid on a gushing wound.    I was told try losing 1 pound a week.  That is the healthy way to do it.  Don't tell someone who has close to 200 pounds to lose to be happy with losing one pound a week.  Granted that would be 52 pounds a year, but that would take me four years to lose.  As it was it took a little under two years, and that was long enough.

But even though it took two years to lose, I was back in the water in one year.  I was okay going to a public pool, and I was okay with people seeing me.  So really all the important weight lose happened in the first year.

Why did it work this time and not the other 100 times.  Structure - definitely.  Accountability - definitely.  Maybe like an addict I hit bottom.  I do remember one morning I got on the scale and thought wow, this scale doesn't get any heavier.  If I gain any more weight I won't be able to weigh myself.  But mostly I hated the way people treated me.  I was invisible.  And when I wasn't I was the butt of jokes.  No one likes being a butt.

So my next obsession is going to be the fastest 56 year old backstroker (have to give myself a couple of years to get there.)   I know THS wants me to continue with blogging, so I will be journal my obsession for THS, and anyone else who wants to read it, but it probably won't be that interesting for most of you, but feel free to read it if you want.  The blog address is tayalearnstoswim.blogspot.com

YOU ARE NOW FREE TO MOVE AROUND THE COUNTRY

peace out.




  

Day Six Hundred and ???

652

So ends this stage of the blog.  For all intents and purposes I am done with dieting, and now I am beginning transition to maintenance.  I have seven pounds to my goal weight and 7.5 pounds to being in the "normal range" but transition will take me those last seven pounds I am sure, and if transition doesn't the surgery most certainly will.  I have basically completed this stage of the weight loss, and I have to say that there is a bit of a let down.  For almost two years my whole life has been about weight loss and getting to a certain "number" a huge goal and at times it seemed to be a goal I wouldn't be able to make, but now that I have there is a sadness.

Like I have lost an old friend, one who I could always count on, that let me know that everything was normal.  This - this is like moving and losing your job, your friends, your life.  Every morning waking up and getting on the scale hoping it would be just a little less.  The excitement when it was, the frustration when it wasn't.  But it was a daily goal, something to measure my success or failure.  Now my success is just for the scale to not move.  It really is a whole different mind set.  It is much more difficult in many aspects, I am new at this, but I know my old habits.  I keep saying to myself, keep trying to lose weight then maybe you can just maintain.  But I don't want to keep that mind frame of actively loosing weight.  It ultimately is unhealthy.  It is part of the problem to begin with, so no I don't want to say "I am on a diet".

I weigh less then what I lost (I lost more then what I weigh right now) I am a freak of nature.  I am a freak that I got so heavy, I am a freak that I lost it all.  People said it couldn't be done, I said it couldn't be done, but I did it.  And to be honest, it went a little faster then I thought.  It took twenty years to put it all on, it took two years to take it all off.  I am 53 years old and I beat the odds.

Day 642 - Last week on all product

This is my last week on product and Baby T's is leaving on Friday.  T2 was right, it was a good thing that I wasn't eating, because I would have been gaining.  It was a struggle everyday with her here.  I so often wanted to just throw up my hands and join in.

Was this a good exercise or did it just increase my craving for food.  If I wasn't on this portion of the diet and if I had been eating too much the last couple of days, could I go to a restaurant and not eat?  I have seen that I can go to restaurants and not eat, but if I can eat and I shouldn't will I or won't I.  I suppose if I am with a group of people I could not eat, but if it was just me and one other I don't think I could not eat.

As I said in earlier blogs I was shoving food down Baby T's throat.  Well I mean I was offering her all the food I was forbidden to eat, and it was almost like as was trying to get rid of my craving by having someone, anyone eat it for me.

It just made it worse.

There are some foods that I just can't eat at this time (still) and one of those foods is chips.  The facilitator had said that sometimes you just have to say that you are just never going to go there, it just something you can't have.  And one of those things is chips (or off course and ice cream) but I haven't been having as big of a craving for ice cream as I have been having for chips.

Well even though I was suppose to be eating food this week - I am starting next week, and I guess that is okay.  But I wish it was week two, because then I could have a latte and fruit.  I am still hankering for that latte.  It is going to be the first thing I have August 2.  Go August 2!!!

Day 644 - Class

So we had maintenance people come to talk to the group again, and I was a wee bit shocked by what they were telling them.

First off, one person asked if they weighed their food to get the correct weight.  They all said no.  No?  No they never weighed the food, they could tell how much it was by looking at it.

To be truthful - that is not my experience.  I weighed everything.  If I was having  tuna sandwich I weighed the tuna.  I found out very quickly that the amount of tuna that I could have did not cover a two piece of bread sandwich.  If I was snacking leftovers, I weighed it, measured it somehow.  That is if I wasn't eating TFD.  I weighed TDF food because I thought that they were giving me smaller portion size then I should have been getting, and yes sometimes they did, but most of the time it was the correct portion.  Four oz of steak isn't really that much.  Two bites, okay cut it up you can get a few more bites, but really you have to cut it up pretty small.

So until you are really good at understanding portions you want to weigh when at home.  Also in a restaurant you can actually ask them for the amount of meat you want.  I don't want to take food home with me and if I can have the correct portion to begin with I don't have to cut it in half or only eat half of it.  Though honestly I did do that quite a bit.  But I also learned that the best meal to order in a restaurant was salmon.

But they also were saying that you should expect to gain some weight coming off the product.  J never gained weight, I never gained weight, others in our group didn't gain weight, you shouldn't expect to gain weight.  Dang I should be leading the group.  Follow the plan, know what you want to do and do it.

Day 643 - Today

So I am pretty much done with the diet.  I don't know if you count what the doctors scale is or your home scale when you wake up, but at this point I guess it doesn't matter so much.  Lets just say I am within ten pounds of my goal, and if I make it through transition without any major hiccups then I will have made goal.

So the question is do I want to lose an extra ten pounds?  How much is my range?  Before it was - actually I don't remember.  But last week I ate 960 calories and only lost .8 of a pound.  Does that mean if I ate 1200 calories I would gain?  I don't know.  This worries me because of course I want to eat more then 1200 calories.  I want to eat like 2000 calories.  But if my metabolism is low does that mean I will have to eat like this for the rest of my life?  Oh that would be so tragic.  I am not ready to give it all up.  Dang.

But the end is coming, and this diet blog is really coming to an end.  Because TH wants me to keep going the nature of the blog will change a slightly.  The next stage of the blog and my life is maintenance.  The struggle to keep the weight off and live a life not totally consumed or consuming food.

Day 640 - A day at the Fair

So I promised little T that I would do rides with her this year - assuming I had lost the weight.  So for the first time in over 30 years I did go for rides and I have to say it was very uncomfortable.  I am not sure what is so exciting about being thrown around in a cage.  By the time the rides were over I could barely walk.

I found that it was easiest to just keep my eyes closed, but I was not a silent rider.  I used to be, but I spent the entire rides saying oh shit ouch oh shit.  Finally baby T told me to stop saying shit.  Oh well, it hurt.

So maybe I fit in the rides, but they definitely are made for people smaller then me.  I felt large and overflowing, and I thought that I always wanted to go to Disney land, but now I am not so sure.  Rides are definitely for the young.  I had Disney land on my bucket list but it just came off.

It was nice to have people ask if I was going on the rides.  Before they would take one look at me and pray I didn't get in line because I wouldn't fit.  Now the would try and cajole me on.  But really folks it isn't fun.

Day 641 - Food food everywhere food

I am getting pretty good about sitting at restuarants and watching other people eat.  And when we go grocery shopping I am good about getting everything I would love to eat, but can't.

But at this point in time I am so craving chips.  I bought like seven different bags of chips, all of which I would love to devour.  T2 said it was probably best that I wasn't eating while baby T is here, and I am thinking that she is probably right.

It seems to be getting worse everyday.  I am so tired of not eating that I sometimes just think that I will cave and go crazy.  Have a binge to end all binges.  Why or why am I doing this.

Then I realize that as much as I would want to eat, it is just that.  I want to eat.  I don't need to eat, I am not even sure if I did eat that I would enjoy it.  If I take a step back and think about eating those chips and what I would ultimately feel like afterwards I am sure that the idea of eating them is more enticing then the actual eating.  I also am not sure that one or two would stave off the craving.  Only a bag, maybe two would do that for me.  No it is good that I am not eating.