lose 25 pounds

that my butt looked smaller lately.

Then he fake cried because he didn’t want to lose any of my butt. This was both hilarious and extremely lovable.

I haven’t seen much loss of numbers on the scale, but there is definitely some progress being made nonetheless!

I will celebrate that, and keep trying to make even better choices more often.

to make good choices (or more accurately, abstain from making bad choices!) two times today in not eating sweets that were available to me.
Yay!

Starting Friday, I have the tri-annual three day meeting that is notorious for a steady supply of treats and sweets. Some of the women joke that they always gain five pounds those three days. Often, I’ve over-indulged in those sweets just to stave off boredom and keep awake. So this time, I am going to try to plan ahead to find ways to do that without the unhealthy calories.

I guess I can bring my own snacks that are healthy and will serve the same purpose (staying alert) as the food offered without the sugar and calories. Cherries, rice crackers, etc.
I also can be strategic, deciding ahead in what delicacies I will allow myself to indulge, and which ones are strictly off limits. Right now, I’m thinking that I will let myself have a moderate portion of the rice pudding, since that’s so blissful, but refuse to allow myself the brownies, since they are not nearly as delectable, and I have to limit my intake.

Any other suggestions to help me get through this miry pit of temptation?

is so much harder to handle when you are heavy.

While I’ve been good about exercising, I am still not eating for health. I am still eating junk food, sugar, and just too much quantity.

Still struggling. I’m not doing well with this at all.

I waited a long time before reporting this to make sure it wasn’t just water weight or a fluctuation.

It’s just a tiny drop in the bucket, but it’s something. The exercise is starting to pay off- my body feels firmer, even if the scale isn’t moving.

However, as my doctor and I discussed, while exercise will ultimately make me healthier, and has other wonderful effects, I have to reduce my caloric intake.

I’ll keep trying.

NOT a fun activity for me. Luckily, I’ve been very healthy the last year and a half since I went for my checkup- no sinus infections or flu, but I had to go in order to get a refill for a long-term medication.

I brought up my weight gain of 25 pounds since I had seen him last. He talked about nutrition. I already know all the nutrition rules. This is not an issue of ignorance, but of willpower.

One thing he said that surprised me was that he thought there was a good chance that I had sleep apnea- my airway was very narrow even when awake. I hadn’t known that sleep apnea could CAUSE weight gain- I thought that weight gain caused sleep apnea! He also explained that women without much estrogen (and I have virtually none) are much more prone to sleep apnea.

Unfortunately, there isn’t really anything I can do about the sleep apnea. I simply can not go to sleep with a CPAP or a mouth piece in- I know myself. I will not fall asleep with things on my face.
The doctor encouraged me to consider trying one of the devices, but I really don’t see that happening.

Well, either way, I still need to do a better job eating less junk and carbohydrates and more fruits, vegetables, and lean protein. I got my prescription, but now I’m rather upset.

I’ve been really great about exercising, and I was being moderately careful with my food intake.

Today, though, I ate way too much high-calorie, non-nutritious food for lunch. I regretted it as soon as I finished, as I could feel the overeating in my stomach. I also felt bad emotionally about the lack of willpower.

I guess the thing to do is avoid berating myself, and try to learn from this experience. Eating for improved health feels better than dessert tastes.

It was also very difficult.
I don’t think I realized how much shame was centered around this idea of losing weight.

I think that a great deal of self-thought and self-expression has to be done here, (and sadly, you all have to be the recipients of it- sorry), to figure out what exactly is going on and how I can best combat this problem.

I was a very skinny child, up to a very skinny teenager and a skinny bride. I have a horrendous sweet tooth, and since it never had repercussions as a child, I developed some horrible eating habits. When I got married, we had all kinds of fertility treatments, which I believe started the weight gain. Or the underlying problems started it- or both. Exacerbated by the stress and the horrible eating habits, compounded by aging, I went from skinny to overweight. For a long time, I didn’t realize how much weight I had gained. I had been skinny for so long, and gained so much weight, that pictures of me started to surprise me.

I’ve been diagnosed with Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome, which is highly associated with obesity. (It’s also associated with diabetes, but I am relieved to say that while I have far to go, I am well underway in controlling my sugar intake, and my triglycerides were in normal range in my last checkup.) I had been taking hormones to keep the symptoms of PCOS in check, but since my mother is a breast cancer survivor, and they seemed to be exacerbating my depression/anxiety issues, I stopped a little over year ago.

Since then, I’ve gained another 15 pounds. I’ve also had one of the happiest years of my life, so I don’t intend to go back on the hormones.

Of course, the ultimate responsibility for my weight gain rests on my shoulders. I know that. I have to develop healthier eating habits and exercise more rigorously and more frequently.

So here I am. Finally looking at the truth and confronting this head on. I guess it’s a start, right?

I have very mixed feelings about weight loss and especially conversation around it.

There is so much shame and unhealthy behavior around the concept of weight loss, and it pains me to see beautiful men and women berating themselves for not living up to some ridiculous standard. For this reason, I have tried to fix my thoughts and actions around healthy eating and living, not scale numbers.

I am also loathe to formally make this a goal, because I’ve been wanting to eat and live healthier for quite some time now, but any short-term endeavors around this have failed. I’m afraid that despite my declaring this a goal now, I will fail this time too.

However, I am at my heaviest I’ve ever been. In the last year, since I stopped taking synthetic hormones (I have polycystic ovaries), I have gained another 15 pounds on an already overweight body. I don’t want my doctor to tell me to go on cholesterol medication on my next check up, and I have been having slight twinges of knee pain, which I know would be eased if I took off some pounds. The recent weight gain made some of my pants not fit. I have to lose some weight. I would ideally like to do it before the sweltering summer starts, so I don’t have to worry about excessive sweating when I’m active in the heat.

What I’ve been doing is not enough. I need to take stronger action. I need to lose 25 pounds. (Probably more, but I will be quite satisfied with 25.)