You Win Some, You Gain Some

So...

I gained 4.8 pounds this week.

That's actually not as much as I had feared. I'm back up to 261 pounds, but I've still lost 43 pounds total. I was really hoping to get my 50 pound token soon, so this step backwards sucks. I'm disappointed, but I AM glad I weighed in. Especially with the Cancun trip this weekend--I plan to take full advantage of the bars and buffets (hey, you only live once!) and I want to see realistically how much I gain.

I'm a little freaked out that I won't have my Weight Watchers phone app to track my Points. Since I'll be South of the Border, I'm going to have to rely on the little 360 Points Guide and make sure to track every single gulp of wine and cube of cheese. Yum :) Tracking one glass of alcohol is okay but by drink three, things get a little fuzzy...

One of the other girls going on the trip is also in Weight Watchers with me, and she's not planning to track this weekend. I admire her confidence in herself, but that is NOT for me! If I don't track in Cancun, I might as well go climb back into my fat suit now. I can't get off track. Even with today's setback, I still know I've made it pretty far. I want to keep going. If I let myself binge this weekend, I'll have 48 pounds to work off instead of 4.8.

Also...SWIMMING! I love to swim (LOVE to swim!!!) and the resort has two big pools (WITH a swim-up bar!) and it's directly on the beach. So I'll be romping in the waves, diving in the pool, frolicking around in the ocean--if I'm going to track everything I eat, I'm also going to track all of my Activity Points, dammit!

Maybe I'll earn myself an extra margarita...or five :)

Um, Did I Swallow a Bowling Ball?

I HAVE GAINED 10 POUNDS IN ONE. FUCKING. WEEK.

TEN POUNDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's, like, a whole turkey. That's a cat. That's bigger than a baby.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUU...

Okay, I know it's because I just started my period. But seriously...there's not 10 fucking pounds of menses in my uterus right now. At least I fucking hope not. GROSS. And my ankles aren't swollen (I've taken water pills since my open heart surgery, and I can always tell when they're not working because it feels like I'm wearing water wings on my ankles).

So HOW did I gain TEN POUNDS?!?!

(Sidenote--did you know that there's actually a punctuation mark called an 'interrobang' that represents a combined exclamation point and question mark? It's true. And awesome. Too bad my keyboard doesn't come with an interrobang because I would use it all the fucking time.)

Seriously, though, I can't believe I gained so much weight. I'm back solidly into the 260s again. I did not want to be back here.

The last time I gained this much weight at once, I quit Weight Watchers and didn't return for three years. In that time, I gained back everything I had lost, plus another 25 pounds. It was awful. I don't want to go back there, but I can't help but get discouraged when I gain TEN. FUCKING. POUNDS.

I think I'm going to skip my weigh-in tomorrow. It's my last weigh-in before Cancun, and I don't want to go on vacation with such a bad weigh-in hanging over my head. I want to enjoy myself (within reason) and I won't be able to if there's a formal record somewhere of how hard I failed this week.

And okay, if I am being honest, it's not just my period. I was pretty bad. I was doing okay until Saturday, when I went to a Boy Scout soapbox derby for my nephew. They had all kinds of cookies and brownies and everything for sale, 50 cents each. It was like a fundraiser, right? It would have been wrong not to buy something...right?

I ate a good, healthy, filling meal before I went and I brought a whole purse full of oranges, water, apples, pears (which do NOT hold up well in a purse, I soon found out). But when I saw the monster cookies...man, I couldn't help myself. Oatmeal and peanut butter chips and M&Ms all in one delicious cookie? How could I resist?

But I've been good about letting myself eat something delicious in a reasonable quantity, as long as I'm careful about tracking it. So I thought one cookie wouldn't hurt.

Well, then my dad showed up. This man has done more to influence my weight than probably any other single person on the planet, excluding myself. He immediately started talking about how I looked good but I probably shouldn't be eating cookies...how he lost weight with sheer willpower alone and it takes resolve if you want to keep your weight down...how my sister looked so great and was getting skinnier and skinnier and she wasn't eating any cookies, was she?

Fuck him.

I bought another 50 cent bag and ate every crumb. Then I took half of my girlfriend's chocolate chip cookie. And then, fuck it, there was part of a cookie pie left and I ate that too.

Le sigh.

So I can't really blame my period. It was all me. I'm embarrassed about how much I ate, but even more embarrassed about how I let my emotions overtake me. One moment of weakness has virtually erased all of the progress I've made this past month. I let myself down.

Maybe I should weigh in tomorrow. Own up to it and learn from my mistakes. Either way, I need to be careful around my dad and food. Another week like this one and I'm afraid I'll give up...and at this point, I can't afford to do that. My body can't take it.

Ups and Downs

I lost again this week! CELEBRATE!

I'm down 1.6 pounds this weigh-in, which brings me to a total loss of 47.8 and a current weight of 256.2.

I'm still firmly in the 250s, and it feels great :)

I have a journal from my senior year of college--2004--lamenting, "I went to the doctor and weighed 256! This is the biggest I've ever been!" The rest following several pages contained angsty complaints about my body, desperate promises that I would turn my life around, and careful documentation of every morsel of food I put into my mouth. I started reading Dr. Phil and wrote about how much sense he made and how great I thought I was doing. Of course, I was also snorting Adderall and binge drinking every night, so whatever I ate probably wasn't going to do me much good anyway. The lists were things like "3 tortilla chips, 1 bag of Skittles, 1 bottle of Mad Dog, 1 baked potato, 1 large order of onion rings, 2 bottles of Boone's Farm, vodkaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..."

So, well, I didn't get very far. I stopped writing in that journal. My weight continued to fluctuate. I graduated, couldn't afford food, and dropped down to 230 on a diet of rum and ramen. My Dr. Phil book is still in my bookshelf, beside a neat row of food journals, self-help books, hypnosis how-tos, and other worthless paper.

At the time, I know I NEVER thought I'd end up eating my way to over 300 pounds. I felt sexy, even if I was fat, and I thought I had at least enough self control to stop myself from ballooning up another 50 pounds.

But it happened.

Now I've just got to celebrate being this size again. My next milestone will be 50 pounds lost--and that's only 2.2 pounds away. Amazing. After that, I want to get under 250 pounds. Next, I'm looking forward to being 230 pounds again and remembering what it was like to still be comfortable in my body. 10 years later, though, I'm sure there will be a lot more sagging and grossness than there was in college. After that, I'll be approaching my high school weight. I remember working at Lane Bryant the summer after high school and religiously abiding by the Atkins diet--I got down to 215 pounds, size 14/16 jeans, and then went to college and began a new life of partying and killing myself from the inside. God, I hated Atkins. That was before I was a vegetarian (duh). I subsisted on Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers from Wendy's, minus the buns, and sugar free Jell-O from MCL cafeteria. Gross.

It's so fucking awesome to have Weight Watchers in my life now. Looking back to all of the diets I tried in the past, I realize that I knew I wanted to lose weight but those diets weren't helping at all because I didn't know how to feed myself. Now I feel like I finally have the tools, I have the determination, and I've had a taste of success that's made me hungry for more.

Also, this article made me smile: http://www.thedailymeal.com/too-good-be-true-diet-trends-literally-and-what-you-should-try-instead-slideshow

Weight Watchers is one of the GOOD suggestions! I don't think I've ever been on the "good" diet side before! I'm used to the fad diets, the miracle methods that make lofty claims and let me down, books with chapter after chapter of anecdotes and advice but no real help. This is like confirmation that Weight Watchers works. Although I think 47.8 pounds might be confirmation enough for me.

Viva La Cancun

There's something coming up that's giving me a lot of anxiety. Coincidentally (...Ironically? I never use this correctly...), it's a relaxing beach vacation.

I've faced similar fear and apprehension several times since I started Weight Watchers in August. First the State Fair, then my Disney World vacation in mid-October (during the Food and Wine festival...I was like Templeton in Charlotte's Web...a smorgasbord-orgasbord! But I tracked vigilantly, walked a ton, and still lost weight). Then I faced then Halloween, then Thanksgiving, and finally Christmas.

Now I have an all-inclusive vacation coming up at a five star resort in Cancun. It's for a work function, and my company is infamous for the amount of alcohol we're able to consume in any given situation. This trip is starting out with a private, chartered flight to Mexico with drinks on-board. When we arrive, there's a welcoming party with an all-you-can-eat buffet and an open bar. EVERYTHING is paid for, totally included. There's going to be a mini-fridge in the room that's restocked daily, and everything is free. Seriously. There are restaurants all throughout the resort, all included. They have 24 hour room service that ALSO delivers alcohol to your door...for free! We're having cocktail parties with booze and super fancy feasts, pool lounging days with cabana boys plying us with mixed drinks, beach parties with VIP buffets and private mixologists. As diligently as I plan to track everything I eat, I just know I'm not going to be able to stop myself from taking advantage of at least some of the deliciousness.

The closest I've ever had to anything like this was a cruise early in 2012. There was plenty of food, but we also had activities every day that required a lot of walking, and we had to pay for all of our alcohol. This time, with an unlimited supply and no fees and only a single actual physical activity planned over the four day trip, I can only imagine how much weight I'll manage to pack on.

I'm really trying to think positively, but I don't know how I'm going to react when I get confronted with so much food and alcohol. I've severely cut back on my drinking simply because I don't have enough points to get drunk every other night, but in the past I was a bit of a lush. Of course, once I get a couple of drinks in me I start craving all kinds of fatty foods and my inhibition and self control go right out of the window.

I've got to brace myself for Mexico and try to keep myself in check, but I don't want to miss out on anything either. Isn't that a new name for an old thing? "FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out." It's always been an issue for me, and I definitely don't want to miss out on VIP buffets and open bars.

The problem is, I can't trust myself to turn down free food and liquor.

I'm just going to have to eat like a saint until then, track like a maniac while I'm south of the border, and then fasten my belt again once I'm back home.

And maybe light a candle and keep my fingers crossed that Cancun isn't going to derail me completely. I've come too far to blow it now.

(Oh, and weigh in is tomorrow too. Ay carumba.)

I'd Like to Thank the Academy...

I INSPIRED SOMEONE.

Whoa.

Sorry, I had to get that out.

I don't even know how it happened. My girlfriend was talking to her friend at work and the girl has started trying to lose weight. My girlfriend has been giving her updates on my progress for months, and apparently the girl said today that I INSPIRED HER.

I. INSPIRED. HER.

Honestly, I feel like I'm just barely starting out. I'm still over 250 pounds and I have a long, long road ahead of me. I still don't work out, I'm struggling to maintain my daily "Healthy Habits" with Weight Watchers, and I have around 100 MORE pounds to lose.

But apparently my shedding 46 pounds has given my girlfriend's coworker some motivation. I've never even met this girl and she makes me want to hug her. It makes me feel good. And proud. I feel like I've done a good job...I mean, when I was over 300 pounds, being in the 250-range seemed damned near impossible. I'm grateful that I'm here. I need to take a little time to appreciate being at this weight, even if some people would kill themselves if they were this big. I guess it's all relative.

Even if I have a long way to go, I've come a long way too. I never thought I'd inspire someone to be HEALTHY. I mean, that's just not me. Or I guess it wasn't me.

Maybe I really am changing.

Anyway, this girl then commented on a Facebook photo that my girlfriend posted, and people started congratulating me. You know how much I love Facebook (NOT.). But this makes it "Facebook Official."

I'm officially losing a noticeable amount of weight.

And I'm officially an inspiration :)

I feel like I need to make myself a trophy...(Totally kidding, by the way...my ego is not that big. But my head is certainly getting bigger with these compliments! Hope that doesn't show up during weigh-in next week, ha!).

Really, though, her compliments have helped make me even more determined to continue what I'm doing. It's almost like I don't want to let her down, even though she's basically a stranger to me. Well, plus I don't want everyone on Facebook to look at the photo in six months and say "Yuck, she gained all of her weight back and more!" Stupid Facebook. Still, I feel like people are noticing and now I don't want to let them down.

More importantly, though, I don't want to let myself down this time.

Family Genes

I keep meaning to write about my grandma, but I keep managing to avoid it anyway. It's embarrassing and painful and sad to think about. But here goes.

 

My grandma is awesome. Really, both of my grandmothers were awesome, but only one is still alive. I lost my wonderful paternal grandmother my freshman year of college. (Incidentally, it happened on the same day that my dad disowned me, slammed my head against a metal rod and tried to choke me out, and then told me he never wanted to see me again. They didn't tell me she was dying until it was too late to make it to the hospital. That's just another thing I don't know if I'll forgive my father for. More on this another day.) My maternal grandmother, Meme, has always doted after me, though. She sees me as a younger version of herself, and I can see it too. The way she shows love, though, is with food. ALWAYS with food.

She has always taken great pains to make my favorite cakes and dishes for Thanksgiving, Easter, and Christmas. She makes me a personal pan of stuffing without chicken broth, even though she claims she'll never understand why I'm a vegetarian. Whenever we were celebrating anything growing up, she and Papaw would take us to Red Lobster or somewhere similar. For birthdays and anniversaries, they like to buy or make thick fudgey brownies and mound ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate on top. When I spent a month at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, Meme made me a big box of homemade fudge to share with my new friends--I was insanely popular that day, even though I ate much of the fudge myself. When I would spend the night with them as a child, they'd cook a big supper and then have popcorn with melted butter afterward, followed by ice cream. When I used to house-sit for them, they'd get me a pantry full of chips, Lucky Charms, Little Debbies, and cashews.

Since food is tied so closely to Meme's relationships with me and others, it's no wonder that she also has considerable issues with food.

I've seen pictures of her when she was younger, and she was slim and gorgeous. She looked like Liz Taylor--the resemblance is uncanny. She wore big black beehive wigs and tight bell-bottom pants. She put on weight slowly over the years, and by the time I was born, she was pretty heavy. Some of my earliest memories of her are of her talking about her latest diets. She did a green bean diet for awhile, where she ate green beans all the time. If she wasn't hungry enough to eat plain green beans, the diet reasoned, then she wasn't really hungry. Later, she tried the Sugarbuster diet. Atkins. South Beach. Still her weight continued to rise.

I could see why. You only have to watch her eat one meal to see that her portions are huge, everything's cooked Paula Deen style (she's from Arkansas so most of her meals aren't completed without cornbread slathered with butter, or at least deep fried and covered in salt), and she eats like she's in a trance without knowing what she's intaking. She loves buffets as much as I do, and she always has donuts or coffee cake or cookies on hand.

Even so, she was still pretty. Before she retired, she was stylish and active, even if she was big. But once she retired, it was like she made a nest in her armchair and never left. She stopped swimming and they closed their pool. She stopped going to Vegas for their every-few-months trips because she had trouble fitting in the airplane seats (gee, that sounds familiar). And slowly she began to do less and less.

Now, she has terrible back problems. That's what she says, anyway. I believe that she's in pain, but I think the problems are more weight-related than back-related. I know, I know: I hate physicians who assume every problem with an obese person is nothing more than their weight. But in Meme's case, I think she got so big that moving became a burden, so she stopped trying. I know how she feels, because I was very close to that myself.

My grandfather now has to push her around in a wheelchair everywhere she goes. All 460 or so pounds of her. She got an electric wheelchair, but she doesn't like that as much because she can't get close to her slot machines (they still drive to local casinos since she can't or won't fly to Vegas). She needs help getting to the bathroom and standing up from her chair. It's not old age--she's in her 60s. She just became immobile. She can't put on her own shoes and she hired a housekeeper to do the chores. Her hairdresser has to make house calls because she can't go to the salon. My grandpa is so afraid to leave her home alone and risk her falling that he has to call someone to stay with her if he wants to go to the store or run an errand.

When she was in the hospital last year, they didn't have a bed that could accommodate her. They actually had to call an outside company to deliver a heavy-duty bariatric hospital bed. When it got there, the auto-inflating mattress kept failing. They had the tech out twice and I could tell that he was doing everything he could to avoid telling her that she was too big for the bariatric bed. (That's why I know how much she weighs--they made me try to fix the bed and I saw the weight. For some reason they think that because I can program their cell phone, I should be able to figure out any type of technology. I wish.) They let her keep her own mumu on because the hospital gowns wouldn't fit her. They have to take her blood pressure around her wrist because the cuff won't go around her upper arm. She acts like none of it bothers her, but I can only imagine the embarrassment she must feel.

I never wanted their senior years to be like this. I dreamed of them retiring and having more time for the things they used to love doing--fishing, boating, camping, shopping. Now, they can't even go out to dinner because Meme thinks it's too much of a hassle and it puts too much of a strain on Papaw.

That makes me really sad.

The only good news is that I'm pushing myself in the opposite direction this time. I really was starting to pick up some of her habits--asking my girlfriend to get things for me, choosing to stay home instead of going through the trouble of going out and risking not fitting into a booth or being stared at in a crowd. I'm happy to think that my senior years will be spent doing what I want to do without being constrained by my size...but is it too late to help Meme? She's the most stubborn woman I've met, excluding myself.

I've done all I can, and I'm starting to give up hope that she'll ever take the initiative to get healthy again. I feel like she's resigned herself to living out her final years like the mom in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, and that makes me want to cry. I had almost resigned myself to the same fate...the only difference is that I feel like I still have time to turn my life around. I wish I could say the same for her.

Movin' Right Along

 

Now that I'm officially in the 250-pound-range I'm finally starting to notice awesome, tiny ways that my body is changing.

For example, I rested my chin in my hands today and actually felt my jawbone.

I felt my JAW!

Not the pudgy, doughy, squishy stuff I usually feel when I rest my chin in my hands. Sure, I can still sink my fingers in and squish the fat around, but there's bone under there!

Also, my rings are getting loose! My girlfriend and I exchanged rings in our fifth year together, and my black and white diamond band is falling off of me now...that's a good and a bad thing :) When I get cold, I have to be especially careful not to lose it.

Oh, and less of my legs rub together when I walk! Less, not none. I mean, let's be real--I'm still 258 pounds. Still, less is good! I can feel my knees moving, and even my lower thighs. My upper thighs still rub together, but there for awhile when I was at or over 300 pounds, there were days that I felt like my legs were stuck together from my knees up. When I walked, my legs were so fat that it seemed like only the lower halves of each leg would bend.

AND I can cross my legs again! It's actually somewhat comfortable! Before I started losing weight, I could barely cross one leg onto the other knee. I sometimes had to grab my shoe/ankle/bottom of my pants to pull my leg up. But now, not only can I cross one ankle onto the other knee--I can cross my whole leg over and dangle my top leg down! My thighs have been way too big to do that for a long, long time!

My shoulders feel sharper. My cheekbones look more defined. The thin bones in the tops of my hands show when my fingers move. My dog can jump in my lap and he has room to turn around before flopping down. I can look down at my heart surgery scar without my double chin getting in the way. My underwear doesn't start cutting into my skin by the end of the day. When I cross my arms, my arms tuck under my boobs instead of resting on my stomach out in front. My coats are getting looser. I can scoot my chair in farther at my desk. I can see muscles in my neck move when I swallow. Nurses can find my veins when drawing blood. The tops of my feet don't start bulging over my flats when I wear them all day. There's a gap big enough to reach my hand into when I put on my boots. I can feel the entire length of my clavicle when I run my fingers across. The arms of my glasses don't indent the fat on the sides of my face. When I wipe myself, I don't have to reach far down around my stomach. I can slide between two people to get through a hallway, instead of waiting politely until someone moves. My new maxi dress falls as it should, instead of draping over my stomach in the front. My bras fit better. The backs of my arms are smoother. I can tilt my head all the way back without feeling rolls of fat on my neck and shoulders and the base of my skull. I can lie on my side without my stomach spilling out across the mattress. When I put my hands on my hips, my sides feel almost smooth.

 

These things may not seem like much, but they're huge to me. I always thought about my weight before, but I guess I became numb over the years to the small physical ways my fat got in my way. Now that I'm losing weight, it just makes me more thankful that I'm finally breaking free from that prison of lard. I can actually start to see and feel a difference, which is helping to firm my resolve.

It's kind of sad that it took losing 46 pounds before I could really tell a difference. But I'm making progress. I'm still moving toward my goal. 258 is a lot better than 304. And now that I'm here, I really don't want to go back.

15 Foot Canoe

I have now officially lost the equivalent of...an elephant's heart.

Kind of gross.

Really gross.

Seriously, how is an elephant's heart that big? I can't...I can't even imagine. I like the elephant heart on the right better...

But it's also the equivalent of a 15 foot canoe! That's pretty fucking awesome. Definitely cannot fathom carrying a 15 foot canoe around with me everywhere I went.

I actually lost 5.8 pounds (again) this week, so now I'm officially down to 257.8 pounds from 304, for a total loss of 46.2 pounds. Right on!

I didn't eat very well last week so I'm a little surprised, but I'm just going to accept this as a good thing. Of course I'm overanalyzing it anyway and convincing myself that the loss was due to some other random factor and I'll gain it all back next week. Seriously, though, 5.8 pounds? That's a lot. It's an average Chihuahua. It's almost an entire human's skin. (Yeah, the reference list is proving very helpful.)

I'm especially surprised considering that I found my girlfriend's secret snack drawer. Everything has been stashed in the sponge drawer all along. I don't do dishes so I haven't gotten into that drawer for so long. When I opened the drawer (looking for a Chinese food menu--another poor choice this week, but I was tired and cranky and hungry so don't judge me) I think I could have blacked out for a minute--when my eyes refocused, there was a mound of Snicker's and Hershey Nugget wrappers on the counter and the sweet taste of chocolate in my mouth. I counted them all and tracked them, but I ate a LOT.

Plus, I got another shipment from Macy's (yes, I have a serious addiction to Macy's clearance) and I ordered everything in a 2x again and it all fit perfectly. Yay :) Celebrating the little things right now!

Can't Look Away

So after posting my body measurements (cringe.) I searched the Internets for a way to input my measurements and get an accurate model of my body. I've always felt a little dysmorphic--at times, I can only think of how humongously huge I am and I feel like seven cows worth of lard stuffed into a bodysuit. Other times, I feel sleek and pretty and like I couldn't possibly weigh 304 pounds (well, 264 now I guess).

Behold the wonders of the Body Visualizer:

 

Honestly, I don't think I look like this.

 

I look worse. Much worse. 

The fat bulges more above my knees and elbows, my stomach hangs down in the front (the dreaded fupa), my boobs are bigger. But if you picture this with a fupa...well, that's pretty much me naked.

What an image.

Ugly Green Monster

I think I mentioned earlier that I am not very tech-savvy. I’m not hip to all the new-fangled social media these youngsters are using. I’m really pretty curmudgeonly for being only 30 years old. One of the few things I do use is Facebook. I use it in a more voyeuristic way—I very rarely post anything. I tend to just creep around, liking statuses, and peeking into everyone’s lives through their Facebook posts.

Since the New Year, though, I’ve avoided Facebook like the plague. Why? Because I can’t fucking stand watching all of these idiots posting “I lost 6 pounds this week!” and “My New Years Resolution is paying off! Dropped a size already!”. And of course these jerks all get, like, 80 “Likes” and supportive comments. I just hate the fact that these people have only been eating healthy for two weeks and they already lost more than I did in my first full month on Weight Watchers. I’m jealous, okay? I’m totally jealous. I can’t help it.

 

What’s worse, though, is that one of my friends (okay, really one of my sister’s friends from high school who was always really nice to me so I accepted her friend request) just had bariatric surgery in December. She’s talked about it for months but I didn’t think she’d actually do it. In the first month, she lost 40 fucking pounds. FORTY POUNDS! That’s the exact amount I’ve struggled to shed since August. I’ve worked hard, watched (and tracked) every fucking thing that passed my lips, cut back on drinking, cut back on CHEESE (oh the horror!) and I lost in five months what she lost in one. 

 

As Sarah would say in The Labyrinth: IT’S NOT FAIR. 

 

No, it’s no fair. But I obviously don’t want to put my body through unnecessary surgery. And I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished, without surgery or pills or crazy cleanses. But still…damn. 

 

Honestly, it feels like she’s cheating. It feels like she’s cheating and barreling toward some invisible finish line, and I’m slowly trudging along at a fraction of her pace because I’m playing by the rules (whatever “the rules” are). 

 

It’s totally wrong of me to feel that way. A doctor would not have cleared her for surgery if she didn’t need it. Her insurance or parents wouldn’t have paid for it if she didn’t need it. And I don’t know her life. It’s not my place to judge these people. 

 

But where’s my magic button? 

 

Her first week after the surgery, she had lost 12 pounds. Do you know how long it took me to lose 12 pounds? And she had to do NOTHING except let a doctor cut into her and magically make her skinnier. All of the Facebook comments are like "Way to go! Keep up the good work!" and "We're so proud of you!" Seriously? Proud that she had surgery? Keep up the good work...like doing nothing? Nothing at all? Just eating and magically losing weight? That just seems shitty to me. Again, it's not my place to judge AT ALL...but I can't help it. I'm also really jealous that she's full all the time...I would give anything to feel full all the time. I love feeling full. Now, I feel half starved all the time. Not actually hungry, but not stuffed either. I would love to eat a crouton and feel like I ate a loaf of bread. But I'm doing it the hard way instead.

 

The grimmest thought is that my journey is only going to get harder the further I go. Each pound I lose, I know I’m getting closer to a dreaded plateau, or closer to that invisible line where losing weight takes much, much more effort. That’s a scary thought. Especially when I’m watching all of these other people dropping weight so effortlessly. 

 

It just…it just sucks. 

 

Anyway, I finally brought myself to take some actual measurements in hopes that I’ll see some progress even when the scale gives me bad news. And I'm staying away from Facebook for as long as I can, because that shit can get some serious jealousy stirred up inside of me. I can't imagine going through high school with something like Facebook...I don't know how girls today do it. I want to blow my brains out after reading a few hours' worth of posts, and I'm freakin' 30 with a good job and a great girlfriend. High-school-me probably would have slit her wrists if faced with obnoxious, bragging posts day in and day out. Blah. 

 

Rant over.

 

Now here are my terrifying measurements:

 

Neck: 15"

Bust: 49.5"

Chest: 44"

Waist: 43"

Hips: 52"

Thighs: right 29.5", left 29"

Calves: right 20", left 21"

Ankles: right 11", left 11"

Upper arms: right 15", left 15"

Forearms: right 10.5", left 11"

Wrists: right 7", left 7"

 

There. My soul is totally bared. You know I'm enormous, and that I'm also a Mean Girl. I'm trying to change both, I swear.