Worth the Weight (Loss)

I’m Normal!

I weighed in at 173.0 pounds this morning, down a full pound from yesterday. Somewhere between yesterday at 7am and today at 6:30, I slipped over the BMI ‘overweight’ category and sat down in Normal. I am not yet at my goal, but as of this morning, I am no longer overweight. Wow, that feels good to write. After 7 years of extra poundage, leaving my shirt untucked to cover bulges and pinched skin, 4 years of carrying around my post-partum “baby fat”, and 6 months of strict Weight Watching, I am at long last within the normal body weight for my height and age. Yee-ha!

I put my Size 8 jeans on today-those nifty black straight-legged beauties that I couldn’t get past my knees when I started this program. They’re on, folks. Stage 3, and the button is straining, but I got that danged zipper up, and I’m still sporting my period belly. It’ll be a month before I can wear them out of the house, but they are On!

I’m to a point now where I can ‘see’ my body from here. I can see the places where I need to lose, or where I could lose more if I chose. I’m not just this blob-like creature, walking around indistinguishable from a man with long hair or a shapeless, sloppy creature who, despite her mammoth size, is easily overlooked in public places. I can still see a little pooch in my tummy; it’s where I carry all the extra pounds, so it’s no surprise that there’s still a little kangaroo ‘joey’ in there. Hey, I’ll take it. A joey is a much sweeter companion than the Octopus I’d been carrying around in my stretch jeans all these years. And, as I’ve recently discovered, it’s a lot easier to fold a joey into my tightest jeans. The octopus had major issues with me jerking those no-stretch denims over its head. The joey has much less to say about it.

I got so excited about being normal that I actually drew a bath and shaved my legs today. I haven’t shaved my legs regularly in years. The ‘reason’ has changed over time; first, because I was a feminist, then because I was pregnant, then because I was apprenticed as a lesbian. Those reasons were really more rationalization, though. I like having smooth legs, but it’s a torturous hell to shave in a tub when there’s a boulder lodged between your legs and your torso. Standing was worse, as I couldn’t see my legs when I was bent over, and the effort of keeping myself from toppling over proved harder than the shiny-legged results I would achieve. In the end, I opted for black hosiery, then tights, then “refusing” to wear skirts or dresses because women/pregnant broads/dykes didn’t dress like that.

Today, I shaved without incident, and I enjoyed it so much that I actually laid back in the tub, soothed by the water that now covered my body (and didn’t when I was fat) and read a little Miss Manners until the water cooled.

People at work are now initiating conversation with me in the hallways, and the door is routinely held for me. I want to get worked up over how this should always be the case, and at some point I will, but for now, I’m so warmed by being noticed that I cannot taint my glee at how normal and regular things have become. I look like a regular person. My hair is done (well, for me, anyway), my clothes fit and are fashionable, I’m painting my nails again—Revlon’s “Cherries in the Snow”, and I’m of normal body weight. I’m actually looking forward to my annual physical this year. I might even keep my shoes on this time, just to make next year’s results a little more dramatic.

I’m starting to think about a goal weight--sort of. I don’t really want to, but the temptation to log one and draw a finish line plucks at me. I want to know when this piece will finish, so I can get to the business of Living This Way Forever. Of course, I’m already doing that, and of course as I near my goal weight, my losses will slow, so maybe I shouldn’t be too hasty to select that magic number. For my height (5’10”), I should be somewhere between 135 and 174 pounds, depending on my bone structure, my activity level, and my age. I don’t really acknowledge the age one; after all, it’s supposed to be harder to lose weight in your 40s than in your 20s. I’m beginning to think that it’s harder only because I had the habits longer. Once I set myself to the task, this weight has come off as naturally and as well-paced as any of the stupid ‘gotta get into those jeans’ diets I did when I was younger. And this one has the benefit of working forever.

I consider myself to be a small-to-medium frame, which means that I should be somewhere on the low-to-middle side of the scale. I want to be at 150, since that would mean that I’d lost over 100.0 pounds on this journey. I know that’s not what this is about, but doesn’t it sound cool? I lost One Hundred Pounds. See that fifth-grader over there? I used to carry that much extra weight on my body, and now it’s all gone. It’s gone: severed from me like the cancer, the diabetes, the stigma, and the pain that it was. I chewed my way through vegetables and couscous and an endless parade of chicken breasts to get down here. I did it, it was worth it, and now it’s over. Maybe I’ll go have a potato. HA HA HA!!

When I was a teen and a college co-ed, I weighed routinely in the low 140s, allowing for period weight, basketball season, and whether I had something slinky that just had to fit that weekend. Howard keeps telling me that I can’t get back down there, and maybe he’s right, but right now I seem unstoppable, weight loss-wise, and it’s very tempting to head back down to where I rested all those years. I don’t think I would consider it a failure if I aimed for 140 or 142 and couldn’t budge the scale below 150 without spending all evening on the exer-cycle. Maybe it would be better to know approximately where I want to land (140-155) and see what my body says about it. I’ll ask Joey when I unleash him tonight.

But now that Howard has decided on a goal weight, I’m tugged to pick one, too. It would be meaningless, except in WW terms. If I chose a goal weight there, and then hit it without gaining 2.0 pounds over 6 weeks, then I would become a Lifetime Member, and my meetings charges would disappear. I’d still go; in fact, Howard and I both intend to keep going every week, even after we’ve hit goal, and then lifetime. It’s good prep for becoming leaders.

Lifetime Member. Man oh man, that’ll be me. Howard and I, Lifetime Buddies forever.

Speaking of forever, Howard and I are engaged. It only took 6 months….and 24 years to get here. I am happy beyond words, my heart soars, and for the first time in my life, I have hope: real, solid, built-on-reality hope.

We’ve found a place and set a date: October 13, 2007. It’ll be a small-ish affair, where I hope to be surrounded by all my/his/our most treasured friends and family, and where I will join my life to this honorable man, who will lift me to such a rapturous place that ‘happy’ will look like something that I feel when I’m PMSing.

We’ve been engaged for a week and while plans are unfolding at as comfortable a pace as we can manage with 2 full-time jobs, a treasured DS with a colossal “I need Mommy and Wozen” desire, and only 9 months to finalize every detail of our wedding in a town where the average engagement last 17 months (precisely because of all the things noted above, along with an alarming lack of desirable spaces to host this sacred and joyous event), I can tell you that I’m already taking daily precautions to ensure that I don’t snap off the head of some smarmy by-the-job clerk whose too busy nursing his hangover to endure my questions.

It’ll be a journey; one that Howard and I intend to take together, and we’ve vowed to have fun with the planning, or if we’re not, to stop planning and figure out how to make it fun. So far, it’s been wild, and with only a few hiccups that are already funny. Did you know, by the way, that if you have your wedding at The Drake Hotel that you must have a minimum food and beverage charge of $52,000. Yes, folks, that’s right: fifty two thousand dollars. For canapés or lobster, or, maybe pancetta-wrapped cantaloupe served on gold bars. I’ll tell you what: I am a traditionalist (I have learned), and I honor the ritual of the ceremony well above the ambiance of the party, but I want my guests to feel welcomed and happy, and to have a marvelous time on that Saturday. But if I’m to pay FIFTY TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS for something, it should have a basement. Or at least a private entrance and a garage.

So, we will not be having our wedding at The Drake. Nor the Signature Room, the Metropolitan Club, the Garfield Park Conservatory or the Harold Washington Library. Nor, for that matter, will we be having the wedding downtown. In fact, we’ve found a darling yummy spot in the NW suburbs that is to be our wedding and reception (and cocktail hour) locale. I hate the name, but I love the place, and I might even be talked into offering a chicken dish for dinner. Don’t hold your breath, though. The fish and steak options look far more elegant. If you want to check it out, here’s the link. And don’t laugh too hard. Or, go ahead, but please keep your snickering behind your handkerchief when you meet me in the receiving line.

http://www.barnofbarrington.com/

Yep. I wasn’t born in a barn, but clearly I’m going to marry in one. Well, why not? Forty foot ceilings, roaring fireplaces, an elegant menu, and a catering manager who considers evening weddings to be her favorite. There’s even a balcony for the musicians to stash during the ceremony, and a beautiful sculpture that will frame around the huppah and take my breath away. That is, if the groom hasn’t already.

Look for lots and lots more commentary on this as I venture through the next 9 months. I have a whole post written about the bridal show that Howard and I attended last Sunday. That’s where I learned all about the Bridal Industrial Complex/Cult of Fear and Loathing of All Things Tasteful. Glad I went, gladder still I won’t be going again. But I had to do it once: it’s the normal thing to do.

A the B(etrothed)