It's all on me

A few years ago, right before I moved here to Utah, I was frustrated with my lack of weight loss results and, on the advice of a few friends, made an appointment with an endocrinologist.

I was working harder than ever and eating better than ever and getting nowhere.

I had heard stories from friends who had battled with whackadoo hormones and finally saw the weight drop off when they saw a doctor and got themselves balanced.   I figured, why not?

Why not indeed.

I was hopeful.  This is basically how my interaction with Dr. Jerky McJerkson went:

Dr. M:  What seems to be the problem?

Hopeful me:  Well, Dr. M., I've been eating XYZ and working out 6 days per week doing P90X and can't seem to drop a pound.

Dr. M (acting impressed with my regimen):  Wow.  I'm impressed.

Still hopeful Me:  I'm hoping you can help me figure out what's going on with my body because I'm at my wits' end and very frustrated.

Dr. M (feigning understanding):  That's understandable.  Let's do some blood work and see if we can figure out what's going on.

Fast forward to two days later when Dr. M. calls with the results:

Dr. M:  Mrs. Reynolds (this was in my pre-Carpenter days), I have the results of your blood test back and your hormone function looks normal.  BUT ...

side note:  This is one big BUT ...

BUT ...

Your cholesterol is a bit high so you really should lose some weight.

Hopeless and discouraged me:  Hangs up phone and cries for 20 minutes.

Did he really just tell me I need to lose weight?  What the hell does he think I sat in his office crying about two days earlier?

Fast forward again, this time to a mere two weeks ago when I lost my mind and decided to put myself through this again, only THIS time I did it without insurance.  That's right, I paid CASH right out of my POCKET for the abuse:

Evil female P.A.:  What seems to be the problem?

Me (thinking, "Weird, this feels familiar"):  blah blah blah weight, blah blah blah, working hard, blah blah blah losing my freaking mind for the last 3+ years, blah blah blah I'm doing the work but can't seem to get the results I'm working for

E.F.P.A.:  Yes, I hear the same story from a lot of women.

Me:  I don't want a magic pill, I'm willing to do the work and I do it.  I'm just wondering if there's something going on in my body that's making it so much harder for me than for everyone else on the planet.

E.F.P.A.:  How 'bout we try some Phentermine?

Me:  Uh.

Me:  Well.

Me:  What does that do?  (I asked this already knowing the answer)

E.F.P.A.:  It's an appetite suppressant.

Me (in my head):  So I just told you all that I'm doing and how hard I'm working and how much frustration and heartache this has caused me and YOU SAY 'DIET PILL' TO ME?????

So what did I learn from these experiences?  A couple of things.

I learned that I really need to stop talking to doctors.

I learned that, before I even get a chance to discuss my issues with a medical professional, they see my weight on the chart and look at me and instantly lump me in with all the other overweight people who come to see them and want the easy fix.

SO not me.  SO not fair.

But the most important thing I learned is that this weight loss thing is all on me.  This is MY fight.  I might have jacked up hormones and vitamin deficiencies and evil little microscopic men inside my body who transport all the food I eat directly to my hips.  Whatever the reason, this weight loss thing is harder for me.  It didn't used to be, but it is now.

Even the people out there who COULD help me and probably SHOULD help me, won't. I could stay ticked at them, but the only way that's useful to me is if being ticked burns calories.  But it doesn't.  Trust me on that.

So instead ...

My body fights against me.  I fight harder.
Doctors refuse to help me.  I help myself.
I get discouraged and have a bad week.  I dust myself off and make the next week a good one.

Ultimately, the most balanced hormones and the most competent medical people and the best personal trainers in the world can't give me the health and fitness I so badly want and need.

It's all on me:  the work, the attitude, and the outcome.

Less is More

A couple of weeks ago, I had a sort of epiphany (I love that word).

Side note:  Speaking of the last couple of weeks, did anyone notice I haven't been around here for a while?

I didn't think so.

We've been on the hunt for a bigger house to rent. House hunting is time consuming and stressful.  Did I mention we found one and love it?  May 1 is the day.  Can't wait.

Back to my epiphany ...

I was sick with a sinus infection and wasn't able to work out for about 5 straight days.  That is HIGHLY unusual for me.  I'm an up-at-4:30-every-morning-6-days-a-week-worker-outer.  True story.  I don't like the feeling I have when I skip my workouts.  I feel guilty and lazy.

I was eating as I normally have been during this exercise hiatus.  I wasn't so sick that I'd lost my appetite.   I mean really, it's rare that I'm ever THAT sick.  My appetite pretty much never takes a hiatus.  Sad.

I was very apprehensive about stepping on the scale at the end of those five days.  But I sucked it up and braced myself for the bad news.    So how shocked was I to see that I had LOST WEIGHT?    WHAT?

This mysterious turn of events caused me to pause and re-evaluate everything I've been doing over the past few years with little to no success.  I've shed many a tear and thrown many an internal tantrum over the fact that I probably work out harder than just about anyone I know, or at least more often and consistently, only to see THEM basking in the glory of their newly-revealed abs while I'm still over here wondering when I'll see my toes again.

Not fair.  Begin. Internal. Tantrum ... NOW.

So I did some Googling and reading and some more Googling and discovered that I might be on to something with this whole concept of fewer workouts and more rest.

My workouts have, in the last year or so, begun to feel like punishment for my body -- something I was doing TO it rather than FOR it.

Time for a change.

Over the past two weeks, I've been following a new schedule:  The "work out for four/rest for three" schedule.  Two days per week, I hit THIS workout hard:

It's a hiney-trasher, fo sho.  But totally in a good way.

The other two days, it's some vigorous hill walking on the tread.  Not killing myself, just getting my  heart rate up in intervals.

And what, you may ask, do I do the other three days of the week?  

Does this answer your question?

Oh, if only.

But I do sleep a little longer and enjoy a day of rest.  No, THREE days of rest.  And by "rest," I mean going to work, taking care of kids, running errands, doing laundry, cooking dinner, helping with homework, picking up messes.  THAT kind of rest, minus a workout.

REST.  Who knew your body needed it in order to be healthy?  What a concept.

And the result of all this working out and resting and working out and resting?

Last week's loss:  -1.6 lbs

This week's loss:  -2.4 lbs

That's 4 lbs lost over the last two weeks and a total of 14.2 lost since I started this little blogging adventure.

The little bits here and there are adding up.  And I'm learning things as I go.  

What I've learned recently:  "Only" working out four days per week does not mean you're a lazy, good for nothing slacker.  Rest and recovery are just as vital to your overall health and fitness as exercise. Eat good-for-you food, move your body, change your attitude, and the results will come.  Slowly but surely.

I hate the "slowly" part of this whole process, but I'm learning to relish the small victories.

Biggest *&@#$% Loser

I've probably said this before, but I need to quit watching The Biggest Loser.  The typical weigh-in segment of this show is not good for my psyche.  They usually go something like:

Contestant hesitantly tiptoes onto the scale, hoping to show big numbers for the week.

The display teasingly flips through numbers until it finally lands on the contestant's weight.

A "-8" pops up on the screen, followed by a few prime-time television censor beeps.

"Oh, beeeeeep.  Are you beeping kidding me?  I worked so beeping hard this week.  I just don't beeping understand it.  Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep."

In my mind, I'm thinking, "YOU LOST EIGHT BEEPING POUNDS, YOU UNGRATEFUL BEEP!"

You have the greatest trainers in the world at your disposal and you are changing your life in every way imaginable!  Eight pounds is beeping amazing!!!

When I have a week like this week, where I lose a "mere" 2.2 pounds, I have to really talk myself into being grateful that the scale is moving in the right direction.  I have to stop wishing for those Biggest Loser-like results.  

They are a TELEVISION show, for crying out loud.   Their weight loss efforts--and expectations--are completely  unrealistic for the 99% of us.  Oh that we could all quit our jobs and leave our stressful lives behind for several weeks and be trained and monitored by the toughest trainers on the planet.

... and have $250,000 dangled in front of our noses as motivation.

For most of us, not gonna happen.

Most of us wake up every day to bills and kids and messes and jobs and homework and commutes and beeeeeeeeep.

And in the middle of all that daily reality, we have to find the motivation to crank out a workout and make healthy choices when all we REALLY want to do is Hoover the dessert table at the local buffet as a way of forgetting our responsibilities, if only for a few moments.

I say, if I can lose a couple of pounds AND continue to face my realities every day with little to no hope of ever being paid $250,000 to do it, maybe I'm slightly more inspiring than those whiny little snits on TV who think 8 pounds is something to sneeze at.  

Aaaaa-chooooo!

Beeeeeeeeeeep ... 

More Insanity

As of this morning, the scale reads exactly the same as it did last Saturday, but a few pounds LESS than where I was early in the week.  So, while the scale didn't exactly make me cry today, it did manage to piss me off a little.

Remember the definition of insanity?

I don't want to go there anymore.

For me, there are two weight loss killers:

1.  Treating myself
2. Eating too much in the evenings

These are the things I need to work on going forward.  I have to confine the treats (a meal out, a trip to Cold Stone, a piece of cake) to one day per week and I have to keep those treats SMALL.  Uber small.

Eating too much in the evenings means having a meal.  I think my metabolism goes into hibernation mode by around 4:00 p.m.  If my energy levels late in the day are any indication of  my ability to burn calories, then I'd say that has to be true.  I lose steam early in the day because I START my day early with a hard workout.      For some reason, if I eat anything more than a piece of toast or a small healthy snack, my body punishes me.  It's like whatever I eat after 4:00 p.m. gets transported directly to my hips.  No converting to energy, no passing through my intestines.  Just right to the old fat storage unit.

So those are the two places I need to be very careful.  And probably more careful than most, for whatever reasons.  Hormones, age, dead metabolism.  Who knows?

We all have our crosses to bear in life.  This one is mine.  But it's mine to be strengthened by or defeated by.  I get to choose.

If only carrying crosses burned extra calories.

A Stranger No More

I've been a stranger to my own blog for the past week or so.

Lost focus. Got sidetracked.  Took my eye off the ball.

You see where I'm going with this.

I let feelings of discouragement and frustration get me down.

I need to stop doing that.  Can anyone teach me how to stop doing that?  Or is there a pill that can help me with that?

I just broke a very important writer's rule by ending consecutive sentences with the same word.

That, that, THAT!

Focus, Jacey.  Focus.

Last week's weigh-in (the one I never posted) was a disappointment, to say the least.  I had big ideas about getting over that 10-pounds-lost mark.  But alas ...  I ended up gaining back 2 pounds of the 9.8 I'd lost.

Well crap.

Not exactly what you'd call getting up over that 10 pound mark.

But success in anything -- weight loss, career, any kind of personal achievement -- requires rising above an awful lot of crap.

 Or so I've heard.

I don't know what this Saturday will bring, but I'm staying focused.  The other option is to give up.  I may have my occasional setbacks, but I haven't failed until I've given up.

Failure is not an option.

I hope you'll help me stay accountable. I could use a cheering section that isn't afraid to break their foot off in my John Brown hind parts every once in a while (a thousand worthless bonus points to anyone who knows that movie line).  I've learned over the past week or so that the longer I stay away from the blog, the easier it is to stay away from the blog.

But I need to be here.  REALLY need to be here.

So even if the scale makes me cry on Saturday (it wouldn't be the first time), I'll be here to report.