Start of the Breakdown*

*10 points to name the artist

I’m pretty tired of the nuclear melt-downs.  I mean from a completely objective perspective it’s nothing to get over the top upset about.  So my weight is staying the same.  End of the World?  Hardly. People get through plateaus all the time.

I guess the part that bugs me the most is the effort put in to see no change on the scale. It’s important to mention that the scale is what is upsetting me the most.  I’ve now heard from several people that the scale is not the only way to measure success.  I knew this.  I still know it.  So why is there a part of my brain being so stubborn?

If I simply look back to this time last year there is already a major transformation. I’m not talking only about my body but also about my mind, my spirit, my outlook on my life.  But, this is a weight loss blog and let’s face it, weight loss is still important to me.  So let’s recap again:

Sometime in March last year (after we returned from 2 weeks in the States and I weighed in at WW at a loverly 99KG), Hubs and I started the Couch-to-5K program.  If you are not familiar with this, it’s a 9 week program to get your arse from the couch to running 5K within somewhere around 30 minutes (which propels most people into wanting to do more, if they make it through the program).  The first week it’s literally something like walk 2 minutes, run 30 seconds, walk 1 minute, run 30 seconds and so on.  As a fatty-fatty-two-by-four it’s a normal reaction to feel like you are going to die during one of these 30 second intervals but no one does and the feeling of accomplishing the first week is really amazing.  I had tried a running program once before, years ago, but my head and my heart wasn’t fully into it, so I stopped.

I had a personal goal of hitting under 90KG and at that time I would get fitted properly for shoes and buy some workout gear (on a side note:  I love when Shauna of Dietgirl fame talks about the “Vampire Method”;  I only wanted to go running in the dark, early morning or late in the evening so no one would notice the time-delayed lumps of lard catching up with the rest of my body).  At the end of May, I hit this target and got my shoes and gear with the money I’d saved from quitting smoking the December (Christmas) previous.  I ended up with Nike + shoes.

Since the moment I opened that shiny white beautiful transmitter and placed it carefully in my shoe my life has been altered. With Nike + I’ve been able to record all my running activity and I’m completely addicted!  Being the numbers nerd that I am, I love the charts and graphs  and statistics.  Nike + tells me how far I’ve run in distance, time and calories burned, totals to date and when I run faster or longer a well-respected (and in some cases not so respected anymore, hey, Tiger?) athlete comes on to tell me what a great job I’ve just done.  Yes, Lance Armstrong congratulates ME.

So I ran all through the spring and summer, here at home but also in Berlin and in two different places in Belgium that we went to, collecting mileage and data on my Nike + which has really inspired me to go much, much further.

During the summer something else changed.  I was still losing weight and gaining confidence  and I spent a lot of time riding my bike as well.  Not just to and from the station either.  We were purposely going out for a bike ride.  One day we even cycled 50 KM in total, our main purpose being to visit my mother-in-law who lives in care in a few cities away from us..

There is also, of course, the improvement in my confidence and self-esteem.  It’s not 100% but it’s better.  I feel good most days and even when I’m complaining about weird crap that seems to only happen to me, I still feel good. 

So. OK.  I haven’t lost any weight in 3 months.  These things I’m mentioning – I can’t even compare the value they have compared to seeing the number on the scale.  But I’m struggling, you know.  Especially lately.  I KNOW these accomplishments are great and YES I am proud of myself.  NO the number won’t make me a better person.  But I don’t WANT to be 82 KG.  I want to be less.  I don’t even want to be skinny, people! In fact my goal weight?  Yeah, technically it’s even in the “overweight” category if you look at BMI charts.  I don’t care about all that stuff.  I don’t like my clothes for example.  Some clothes are just hanging off of me.  Some are just old.  I have one really fairly decent pair of jeans.  I have smaller clothes waiting, begging to be worn.  The much bigger clothes?  Those are gone.  I’m not going back.  I want to go forward.

I have been discussing and tweaking and thinking and rethinking and trying new things and reading books and writing and talking and frankly it’s doing my freaking head in.  I’m having a breakdown here people!  My poor husband has to listen to the explosions as well.  Imagine your wife/girlfriend/partner having a tiny little H-Bomb going off inside of them without any warning whatsoever.  That’s me.  Send sympathy greetings to the Hubs, he could use them.

I haven’t been to WW for a while.  Not since November.  Yes I need to go.  I know this.  I have only so much time.  I’m spending time already working, traveling to and from work, planning my food, preparing my food, eating my food, thinking about food, exercising, going to the gym, sleeping.  Please tell me when I can go to WW and still plan and prepare for the next day?  I can’t.  That’s the problem.  I then have to get up the next day at 4.30 to prepare my stuff.  What? 4.30 you ask?  4.30.  You know why?  Because I know myself and I can not function on taking a cucumber sandwich to work for lunch.  No. Sigh.

OK this is basically a whinge but that’s the current situation of Le Pie.  I’m not giving up.  I recognise my accomplishments.  If I’m a little bit bitchy in the meantime, please try to understand.