I blog...

when I should be mowing my lawn. :-)

Update: Okay, so after I typed the sentence I went outside and mowed the backyard, which hadn't been done in two weeks. I'm allergic to grass, so this is kind of a pain in the ass for me. I'm all good until it starts seeding and then itchy eyes, runny nose and sneezing. 

I pushed the mower for 30 minutes and finished the backyard, which in this heat is great exercise. My mower isn't self-propelled, so I'm bent at funny angles at turns. I was so lazy I stepped around the dog poop. (I'll get that later tonight when X-man is in his sandbox after dinner.)

But the real news is this morning: At 10 a.m. I went back to Weight Watchers for the first time since 2003. From 2002-2003 I lost 27 lbs on WW. When I quit, I did it by myself and really kicked up the exercising. I went to Curves 4 times a week and walked 45-90 minutes EVERY DAY. My weight went from 251 lbs to 200.5 lbs over 4 years of effort at an average of 12 lbs a year. I went from a size 22 jeans and size 18 shirt to a size 16 (nearly a 14) jeans and size 12 shirt. It was the first time since my freshman year of college where I was the same size as most of my friends.

And as every weight loss person will show you here are my obligatory photos.

Before (July 8, 2000)

After (December 2004)

Now, those of you who've always had an easy time with your body will say. Well, of course, you started eating right and exercising -- duh.

But it's more than that for me. There's this scene in "The West Wing" when Leo McGarry talks about his alcoholism that really hit it home for me. It was, don't laugh too hard, the reason I went to Weight Watchers in the first place. Leo was talking about drinking. About how he doesn't understand people who can have just one drink. How alcohol makes you feel great and why wouldn't you always want to feel like this.

I feel that way about food. I don't understand people who have cookies in their house and can eat only one. I have to purchase "snacks" at the gas station to limit myself to a small sample serving. 

I'm also an emotional eater. I get happy, I eat. I get bored, I eat. I get sad, I take myself for ice cream. I eat out way too much. I eat too much. I eat at bad times (like eating a healthy breakfast and lunch and then consuming a whole whole wheat veggie pizza for dinner). But it's also about fitting in to a certain degree. In the midwest there's not a whole lot to do to socialize with people that doesn't take place around food. I'm 1/4 Italian, so I get that from my family too. It's how you bond, where good connections take place. It's fulfilling and it's fun. And it tastes damn good too. 

Now, here's the deal. Outside of the occasional (and I mean 1 a month) pint of ice cream that walks into my house (okay, well, at least I carry it in myself) I don't usually eat crap. There are no Oreos in my house. No sugared pop. The meat we eat is all high-end, lean as can be. I cook primarily from a WW cookbook, or from Cooking Light or Mayo Clinic. 

I didn't eat fast food more than once every six months when I weighed in at 251. I walked a 60-mile walk in 3 days. I trained and ran a marathon -- yes, at 251 lbs. I worked 12-hour days. And every moment I wasn't at work, I volunteered with animal rescue and tried to squeeze as much quality time with my husband in as possible.

My cholesterol is 150-170 on average. My glucose levels have always been normal. And my blood pressure is usually 103/65. 

So when it was repeatedly communicated to me by strangers on the street, my father and other people I know that they equate my obesity (and others') to laziness. I get pissed. 

Want some examples? 

I'm 21 years old. A size 18/20. I walk up the stairs at the metro in D.C. at Metro Centre on my first day of work at my internship. And some middle-aged guy stops me at the top (he had come up behind me on the stairs) and said, "It's so refreshing to see someone of your size take the stairs." I walked to work the rest of the summer to avoid such issues again.

I go home for a visit 2 years later. And my dad asks me what I want to drink with dinner. I ask him what kind of milk he has. He says 2 percent. I ask for water instead. "You know if you exercised more you could drink the 2 percent, and it wouldn't matter."

I'm in Wal-mart standing in an aisle. I'm 8 month's pregnant and my entire stomach has become one big striped wall of stretchmarks. I'm miserable, suffering from depression and staring at the selection of baby crap in front of me as I mentally prepare to give birth (sans epidural -- cause I'm a moron -- to a 10 lbs 2 oz baby). A woman walks up to me with her cart and a toddler in the seat and says, "Congratulations! When are you due? You're so huge! When I had my first I swear I looked like one of those models in the pregnancy catalogs, but you, you look more like I did after my fifth when I had trouble fitting in my SUV."

Yeah, no lie. Jacked up. 

So, now I'm back at it after finally working through my depression to get back on track. I can't eat like my friends. I have to limit what I eat with my friends. And don't think that things just change for me. Nope, they change for the family, too. If I'm going down this road, they're going with me. But mostly what I hate is that it shows another way in which I feel I'm deficient to everyone else. My husband, he eliminates regular soda from his diet and he loses 10 lbs in a month. My friend's mother-in-law freaks out if she gains two pounds. 

I gain 5-12 lbs with each period in water weight. I gained 75 lbs with my pregnancy. No small accomplishment for someone who threw up three times a day for weeks 3-28.  I lost 44 of it in the first 4 weeks. My nurse practitioner said, "That's a lot of water weight!" 

But perhaps like before it will take me 4 years to get back down to my "smaller me" size (200.5 lbs. still seems mega for most people, but seems good to me). Right now I'm at 241. And I'm about to go into battle with myself — one part of my brain against the other. 

I'm committed. I'm vested. I'm a control freak. I have to take this whole thing seriously as if I have some kind of terminal disease. It's very somber, but I also know it's got to be done. I have a kid at home I have to keep up with. I've got exactly zero attraction points that aren't about my witty sense of humor going for me. 

So here I go counting my points and drinking my fluids and walking my ass off. So if you see me around town be sure to give me a honk or a shout!