Feeling: defeated
Listening to: Evanescence - Breathe No More
Reading/Watching: Gilmore Girls

Did you know I am still fat?

This is not secret-girl-code for "everyone needs to post replies in soothing voices saying 'nooo, you're beautiful, you're so skinny' because I need affirmation." This is my psyche being a bitch to me and looking in my mirror and saying, "Yup. Still fat."

When I went to San Diego (in the picture, from left to right: Bri, me, Amanda) for spring break, Amanda's scale told me I weighed 233 pounds. And I said "holy lord." Even for a woman who's 5'10" with a large bone structure, that is a lot.

I vowed to lose weight. I started trying to eat better. And then I had surgery a few weeks later, and had to be off my feet for 4-6 weeks, which was not conducive to weight loss, so by graduation, I was still no better off. As a girl who normally burns about 2200-2400 calories a day, just in normal routine, even the best diet in the world wouldn't make up for all my usual pacing, fidgeting, and random walking around.

Then I put myself on a strict diet over the summer, and by August, when Krynn gave me the gym membership, I was down to 225. I was proud of myself. My trainer put me on a 1750-calorie diet, and I started working out three or four times a week, because I was tired of having every excuse for being overweight, and I definitely wasn't going to let an opportunity (or a good reason) like this one pass me by.

Now, I have lost a total of nine inches from my overall measurements. I weigh 213 pounds. My body fat percentage went from 35% (August 25) to just under 30% (October 18). Edited to add side note: I was going to cut my face out of those pictures, because I don't like how it looks in either one, but decided to stop being such a chicken. Everyone is saying how nice I look, my trainer is all proud of me, and my "skinny" clothes fit. Some of them even fit loosely (I stole the green sparkly dress my sister wore to homecoming in high school, to keep as a goal for the day I lost "enough" weight. It fit today).

But I look into the mirror, and I still weigh 230+ pounds. I still see everything that dimples, everything that jiggles, everything that's not perfect. I keep telling myself I'm "getting there," but since I haven't actually been anything close to "skinny" (or even "in shape") since I was, oh, seven years old, I can't even imagine what it would feel like. I've worn clothing sizes that were the same as my age (or higher) since junior high. I do not know how to be thin.

So in a way, I'm putting this here to force myself to keep a record. This is my way of proving to myself that it's possible. If I can lose a total of twelve pounds in less than two months (and twenty overall, since May), then I can lose ten or fifteen more in time for my wedding. And even if I still think I'm fat, I have to remember how very far I've come. I have to remember that this is not a race, this is not a contest, this is not a last-ditch-effort to make sure mon coeur will keep loving me.

This is so I can finally say that I really, honestly tried. That I stopped giving excuses. And that it worked. And as long as I continue to try, it will keep working.

(Plus, on Friday Satan and mon coeur want to climb Enchanted Rock, and when my elliptical-machine-toned hiking muscles embarrass those air force boys, when those "forced into athletic training by the military" men are eating my granite cloud, I plan to do a lot of gloating. Silently.)

Comments? 5 so far...
Not a Diaryland member? Sign the Guestbook.