Round

I recently updated my “Progress” page and thought I’d share the changes here.

I’m trying to not be very dependent on the scale, so I am not making many weight goals. I’ve also chosen a weight-management approach that is slow going, and I’m willing to lose one or two pounds a month if I can keep my sanity and keep eating in a normal way without hard-core dieting or constantly running to the gym. As a consequence, every single pound loss is a victory.

After going scale-free for a while, I’ve decided to weigh in once every two weeks or so just so I can see if I’m on track, as going completely scale-free it seemed to be too easy to forget that the goal is indeed to make the numbers (and me!) smaller.

My first major goal is to get out of the “obese” BMI category. Most of my goals focus more on size than on weight, since my ultimate goal is not in pounds, but rather in sizes. My goal is to wear a French size 42. That would put me in the not-top size in any store, giving me loads of shopping choices and a body that is considered normal in this society.

My Weight Ins :

• Starting : 202 (Oct 14, last time weighted before coming back)
• Dec 3 2007 : 198
• Jan 3 2008 : 199
• Mid January : ???
• Early February : ???

My milestone goals (and date attained) - I’ll probably add more weight ones as I go:

• < 200 - Return to Onederland : December 3rd
• 182 - 1st 10% goal AND lowest weight since 2006 :
• Fit into 3 suits that are at the back of the closet :
• 177 -”Overweight” - no longer Obese :
• Fit into my supercool green corduroy cargo pants :
• Try on clothes in stores and be comfortably size 46 (French) :
• Fit into fabulous black skirt that I bought tight and never wore :
• 167 - return to Lowest Adult Weight :
• Fit into the slinky lingerie that I bought as “inspiration” but haven’t made it into yet…
• Try on clothes in stores and be comfortably size 44 (French) :
• Try on clothes in stores and be comfortably size 42 (French) :

I think I’ll also try to really celebrate every 5 pounds, because at the rate I’m expecting to lose, it’s going to be not-so-often!

I look forward to putting the achievement dates on those goals!

I managed to have the New Year’s Eve I’d wanted, just me and my DH home alone, romantic and cool, cooking, snuggling, enjoying each other and our house. Naked.

We ate a LOT of very good and very fattening foods. Caviar (him). Giant Alaskan King Crab legs with lemon butter (me) and homemade mayonnaise (him). A fabulous duck breast that I cooked myself. Roasted winter veggies (kholrabi, beet, parsnip). 2 bottles of wine (neither one finished, don’t worry!) . Fabulous and wild desserts by Pierre Herme, including a slice of the black truffle buche, a truffle macaron, several other macarons, and a few other of his wonderful desserts .

A very nice way to spend the evening. The food fest is over now, time to get serious again.

I spent a lot of time these past few days working on my Best Year Yet 2008 plan. I did the exercises more thoroughly than in the past few years and gleaned plenty of new insights.

Here are my top 10 goals for 2008 :

1. Have a healthy baby
2. Nurture my marriage (build the couple at least 2x/wk)
3. Slowly but continuously lose weight
4. Keep up my weight loss blog
5. Get my French driver’s license
6. Master AdminisTrivia – personal & professional {I am an administrative mess, both personally and professionally, and I need to beat this}
7. Cook regularly
8. Catch up on nagging old projects (wedding photos, scrapbook, etc)
9. Be moving into next job by early 2009 at latest
10. Keep a personal activities accomplishment list for 2008 (do at least 2 items per month) {this includes books read, movies seen, museums visited, etc}

This year was a very interesting project. My number 1 goal, to have a healthy baby, was as I expected, but I changed the wording several times on some of the others, and was surprised to see things that I’d had on the list for a long time drop off, and things I’d never listed make it to the top 10 (administrative tasks, cooking). The other good thing is several things I’d been putting off due to the hassle factor have now gotten “offical top goal” status which should help them get completed - including the horrible process of the French drivers license and a bunch of old “should do them” projects around the house. All of those things put a negative drain on my energy by not being done, and I want to live with a clearer conscience. I was also surprised to see the determined side to change jobs in about a year’s time…

There are 3 goals that are direct links to my weight loss effort. First is to lose weight slowly but consistently. I *think* I will be doing that via Low Stress Weight Loss & my work with Dr Hope, but if that approach doesn’t work for me, I’ll try something else. At first I wrote that following Low Stress Weight Loss was the goal and then I thought about it and realized it’s the method but not the goal.

I also made keeping this blog into a full-fledged goal. It’s pointing myself in the right direction. Making a long-term commitment to keeping a focus on my weight. I know when I get busy or stressed it’s easy to skip it, but I find the thinking needed to have regular blog posts is really helpful to ME. I also love the community of support and the interaction w comments, which is what pushes it to be more helpful & interesting than just keeping a diary. Plus more accountable.
Finally, cooking. I choose to make cooking “regularly” a goal because I think it will be a good thing for various aspects of my life. I think it will be appreciated by my DH (who does most of the cooking now). It is also one of the best ways to control my diet (my DH cooks with lots of fat). It’s also creative and can be fun, and is helpful in the context of the Dr Hope exercises of thinking about what I really want and satisfaction and all of that. I gave myself plenty of leeway with the word “regularly” because I didn’t want to be too rigid with a certain number of times per week, but the idea is to cook frequently.

Well, that sums up my outlook for 2008.

Hope you all have a great year!

I have been doing a program called “Best Year Yet” (BYY) since around 2001. It’s a book written by Jenny Ditzler, which walks you through a series of exercises in which you end up identifying your biggest priorities and objectives for the year. You don’t need to do it in January (I think the first one I did I started mid year) but with all the talk of New Year’s Resolutions I usually just do it then.

I think the BYY program was the big factor for me finally getting myself to really lose weight about 6 years ago. I had identified that the biggest thing affecting various elements of my unhappiness in life were tied to my weight, then it was easy to make it the priority. (It was hard, of course, to put the changes into action, but easier in the context of clear goals).

I also think BYY was a major factor in me meeting my husband. My lack of social life had come up as priority #1 that year, and I forced myself to do social things I didn’t feel like doing, and go on dates I would have liked to turn down. I decided to force myself to go out with a certain number of men that year to feel like I’d made enough of an effort. I think my goal was 10 different guys. My DH came into the picture somewhere in the middle of that number, and I never finished that particular goal…I was on to new ones!

Over the next few days I’m going to be working on my plan for 2008. I don’t know where my weight will come in this year. I’ll probably update a bit on my 2008 goals, at least as they relate to my weight.

For those who are interested, I just googled it, and found this article which explains a lot, and found that there is now a free online workshop too. I’ve never done it online, I always do it on paper and don’t think I’ll change, but maybe it interests someone else.

I’m starting to think staying in this for the the long haul IS the end goal…

Even a year or two ago I had this image in my head of one day being “there” - at goal, done with the hard part.  I’m now realizing it’ll never be done.  Hanging in there day after day after day IS the hard part.

But I’m not someone with a specific pound goal in mind.  I see on others’ blogs that I’m in the minority.

It’s not that I don’t envision success, but maybe I define it differently.  I suppose partly because I’ve never been thin, so I don’t know what that means, I don’t have a weight I’m trying to go back to.  For a long time I wanted to weigh 135, because that’s what my sister weighs and we’re about the same height.

I know what size I want to be (second to the top or smaller in regular stores here in France, so about a US size 10), and I know how I’m willing to live my life (it does not involve hours in the gym or meticulous dieting).  I’m hoping I can  end up at the size I want with the effort I want.  I’m willing for it to take a while to get there, too.  No overnight miracles needed here…

I used to be a scale-o-holic. Or “scale ‘ho” if you are into vulgarity. I have had that foot-square piece of equipment in visible sight in my bathroom for … years. And every day, after potty and buck naked before my shower I’d get on it. Even when I was totally neglecting my weight the evil little square would taunt me on my way to shower, although it didn’t always get regular lovin’ at those times.

My last little dance with this evil critter was on Oct 14th. I was newly pregnant and thrilled about it, but knew I’d need to be careful with my weight. I was down to only a few pair of pants in my wardrobe that fit, and even those were TIGHT. During those early weeks of pregnancy I was paying a lot of attention to my nutrition, but not the scale. When I miscarried a few weeks later I knew my weight was around the same (by how my clothes felt) and I started back on healthy living soon thereafter — without the scale.

And I haven’t missed it at all. I read on others’ blogs their stress about being up a pound or . something of a pound each day. Their screams of victory if they lose the same . something of a pound the next day. Oh, the hills and valleys of the Rollercoaster. I don’t need it. My life has plenty of ups and downs, thank you very much. When I started back to healthy life I gave myself 2 weeks to ease in without pressure or a scale. I’m now about 3 weeks in (still fragile, I know). I don’t think I’m pulling out the scale anytime soon.

On Wednesday morning I was getting dressed and hadn’t done laundry so I decided to try on 2 pair of pants that didn’t fit 2 weeks ago. They were snug, but they worked. I was thrilled. (Of course, I found something else baggy to wear instead!). I think if I watch my progression by my wardrobe I’ll have a good idea of where I am without the pressure I put on myself w the scale.

Maybe you don’t do the pressure thing too much. I used to do Excel graphs and I would calculate how much I “should” lose in a week, a month, for X holiday or event, etc. If I was a pound or two short I considered myself a failure. If it was more than that, I’d usually give up.

I’m hoping that with my soon-to-be-patented Low Stress Weight Loss approach I’ll lose inches, sizes, pounds all in due time. And not kill myself in the process. And not beat myself up because I didn’t lose weight in the regular pattern of my pretty chart. And not ride the daily Scale Hell rollercoaster.

Ok, I know that’s not the world’s biggest deal, but I didn’t go yesterday and the weather for the rest of the week is supposed to be crummy, and I have lots of work to do, and I didn’t feel like it. But I went anyway. And it was nice, I went over to the park and did a lap there, then came back - 40 min in total.

It just started raining now that I’m back, so clearly I made a good decision.

I started an exercise ticker in the “progress” page, and was happy to have something to put on it.

I also set a weight goal. 175 lbs in about 6 months, that’s around a pound a week. No stress, though - if it takes longer, it takes longer. I’m not ready to really diet yet, and while I’m quite proud of getting some exercise in, the walking I’m doing right now isn’t really enough to lose weight. But it’s another step in the right direction…