On the Road Again

Oh, how I love to eat.

I have so much to catch you up on, but this is the biggest and most urgent issue, so I’m starting here. If I can figure out how to stop sleeping at night, I might be able to get everyone current on all that’s happened in the last 2 weeks.

So first, it seems that golden flax meal is not only nature’s broom, but Amy’s Miracle Cure. I’ve been stirring it into my yogurt at breakfast or on to my couscous at night. I’m running about 50/50 on the yogurt vs. couscous, since I run out of yogurt annoyingly often. I love yogurt so much and Weight Watchers makes a brand called “amaretto cheesecake” which is just as awesome as it sounds, and so while I attempt to eat only half a serving, I usually wind up downing the whole 6 oz, and before I know it, my refrigerator is devoid of those darling little cups and I’m back to eating dry brown stuff on top of my dry brown stuff. Yummy.

But even when I have to drink double waters at dinner to get the flax unstuck from my esophagus, it is totally worth it. Not only does the octopus seem less bloated and creepy, but I am dropping weight again. This morning I clocked in a crisp 153.0 pounds, down 98.0 total and off only 1.0 pound from my low before my body freaked out and starting piling on pounds out of nothing. I’m still doing the CLA and the fish oil tablets, and I’m sure they are helping as well. But all hail the little bag of horse feed in my refrigerator. I am back on the weight loss road again.

And speaking of feed, I am still eating more, and I love it. I’m still not quite where I should be calorie-wise, especially on the protein side, but wow has it made a difference. I get to eat pretty much all the time, I’m only hungry for short periods (vs. all day, like I was before), and I feel so much better. I can really be an ass sometimes. In my quest to get things done Right Frickin' Now, I often sabotage my own high-strung efforts. There’s nothing to be done about it, but I really wonder how much more pleasant this would have been for me if I’d exercised from the beginning, ate everything I was supposed to eat and behaved like a normal person. Well, normal for me, but let’s not get picky.

Then again, maybe it’s just not realistic to expect this of me. After all, I had Howard as an example through this whole process, and I never took his lead. Even when he would feel good all week while following ‘his’ program and then starve all weekend when he was following mine, it just never occurred to me that he was losing weight at pretty much the speed I was, and that I could have a more civilized approach to lifelong thinness if only I would have opened my pie hole and consumed a little more.

In returning to food, I did make some painful changes. For example, I’m barely drinking soda any more, and I’ve cut way back on the pickles at night. Of course, I don’t need them as much anymore, and I was eating them because they were basically “free” calories, but it’s still sad to say good-bye to diet root beer and the sugar free chocolate soda. I can’t help believing that the sodium content contributed to my ankles-as-flagpoles look, though, and so out they went.

I also nixed most of my popcorn consumption. I had noticed that the only thing it did for me in the afternoons was make me hungry, and it seemed to puff me up at night, so that when I ate it late on Friday, I weighed in heavier on Saturday. Let me tell you, it is MOST annoying, to be light all week and then weigh in heavy at my meeting. So I still have it, but it’s more like twice a week than twice a day. I don’t miss it as much as I expected, but again, I don’t need it as much any more.

On the exercise front, I’m still running and getting more obsessed by the session. I discovered that I do better if I take 2 days off between runs, so I’m only running 3 times a week right now. This incites me to get that dang weight bench into my rec room already, since I don’t dare hope to stay fit and healthy on running alone. I’ll be endorphin-loaded for sure, and that’s awesome, but I need some real muscles built, and I need something to do on my days “off” besides barter with myself that I can have a serving of goldfish crackers so long as I sprinkle them with flax meal.

But while I wait to get off my mushy tushy and do that, I’ve experimented with running styles. I think running is like racquetball or the guitar-anyone can do the basics in a few minutes, and you can spend your whole life hanging out in the beginner’s section and be pretty happy. But in reality, it’s one of those sports that take a long time to master and there’s a zillion ways to improve it from every angle. I borrowed 2 runner’s magazines from Maria the Spectacular (which I then forgot to bring with me to the meeting on Saturday-they’re coming, I promise!), and they were both great and completely over my head. The words were English, but the concepts were entirely foreign, and it looks like they both catered to the Hard Core runner whose been pounding the pavement for years, rather than lil’ ol Interval Gal Me who’s been at it for 6 weeks.

I did pick up some things about racing and stride, and I’ve used them both already. I figured out, for example, that I wasn’t running or jogging so much as I was sprinting during my run intervals, and while that has its merits, I can’t keep it up for the 4 miles I was logging. I happened to shut off my music at the halfway point about a week ago, and so I had to clock the ‘front’ half of my run separate from the back. I ran the first 2 miles in 15 minutes and the second 2 miles in 19, and I did it the same way, running 90 steps (I don’t have a stop watch-too cheap to invest in a good one), and walking 40. So clearly I’m inconsistent on my speed. I also realized that in sprinting, I was running so that my foot landed way out in front of my body, rather than under me, and that was stressing my quadriceps and my knees, so that I did the Old Lady Hobble for 2 days after any workout. I figure that some of this is New Body Running, but some of it was also bad form. So I shortened up my stride and suddenly the Old Lady Legs went away. Cool.

But I continued to be unable to run for any kind of distance. Yes, I know it’s only been 6 weeks, and yes, I’ve ‘upped’ my running from 70 steps to 90 while keeping the walking constant. But when I think about entering a 5k race, I want to run a bunch of it. I figure adrenaline will keep me racing longer, but there’s no way I can run 3 miles without stopping. The last I checked, I could do about half a lap around the track. Sucks.

Plus, I had this nagging urge to hurl for most of my run, and I could never catch my breath on the walking intervals, even to slow down my hyperventilating. I’m okay with that on some level, because I want to keep improving. But I have to tell you, it’s kind of embarrassing to be moaning out on the roads, even if there’s no one around to hear me. I’m not a tree in the forest, and so it was still happening.

Howard suggested I do a slow run for the first 5 minutes, to warm myself up. Ha! What does that skinny clown know? ‘Warm up’ for me translates into ‘wasted time’. Balls out at all times or forget it! Full speed or stay at home! But then I finished my run on Friday and I couldn’t stand up for 3 or 4 minutes after I finished and I was weak-legged for most of the night. So yesterday I decided to try it. Why not? If I hated the slow pace, I could chuck it for next time. I was going to try 5 miles this time, and so I figured it was a good idea to go easy. Since I was adding 20% to my distance, I wouldn’t mind having a ‘slow’ pace on the first trial. And it sure would be nice to finish a run without wishing I would just upchuck and get it over with.

I reversed my route so I started on a pretty big down hill run. I realize that makes it a big up hill run near the end, but hey, we’re tweaking things, let’s mess up both sides of the equation. I ran to 100 steps and I felt pretty good, so I just decided to keep up the soft pace until I felt ready to stop. Well, I ran for half a mile, even taking in a pretty big hill in the middle, and I was fine. I only stopped because I thought I should, to reduce my risk of injury.

After that, I ran 3 more intervals at 300 steps (keeping the same 40 step walk). I made it to mile 3 before I had to slim it down to 200. I kept up the 200 until mile 4, when my calf started a protest and my stomach started turning. I noticed that I was running faster, trying to get the run over with, and my nausea had returned. I forced myself to slow down. I did try to run the last quarter-mile in, but there were two loopy, turny hills between me and the house, and I got snagged. I did manage to finish on a run, which helped, but I was spent when I finished. Final run time: 45 mins. The last 4-mile run I did was a 7:30 min mile. This one was 9 mins. Much slower for sure, but a far more civilized experience. I’m a little muscle sore today but there is no knee pain and I am walking like a middle aged woman, rather than an old lady. Pretty cool.

So maybe I’ll save the sprints for ‘speed workouts’ once I read that mag again and figure out what that means. I’m going to keep up the 5 miles (which Howard informed me is 8k) and now, instead of aiming for a 5k race, I’m going to try for 10k. Imagine that: the Fat Lady contemplating a 10k run. Well, I did 5 miles yesterday and 10k is 6.2 miles. It’s just a stone’s "hurl" away, as it were. I can definitely see it from here. So again, Me=Ass, but at least I’m learning to listen to others, even if it’s after the fact. One monster hurdle at a time…so long as it keeps me on the road.

So I’m losing right now, albeit slowly. I only lost 1.5 pounds in the last month, but my body was clearly adjusting to the workouts. I think it’s over now, or at least fixing itself, so I hope to continue down the scales until I’m finished. There’s so much else happening that I think I might be okay with this. Well, not really, but I’m certainly less stressed about it, which is going to help draw the pounds off of me.

Howard’s parents were in over the weekend, and both gave me good advice on this. Grandma said to leave my weight as it is until after the wedding and then see how I feel. Grandpa suggested I go ahead and drop to 151, so I could get my 100 pound “pin” and then stop. I’m not really sure that I’m ready to let go of my weight loss, but I got several good looks at myself this weekend, and I have to admit that whatever other weight comes off will be just window dressing. I’m a size 2 in stretch jeans, and a size 6 in everything Misses. In juniors, I’m a 5. What else do I need?

What indeed. No time for THAT discussion. Not until I stop sleeping, anyway.

A the R(oad Warrior)

Reinventing the Meal

Today is the second day of the rest of my life.

I once knew an A-level racquetball player, the kind of guy it’s no fun to play, because he was incapable of a rally. I would hit the ball and he would roll it out. Or he would serve and I would stand there like the coyote after the roadrunner speeds by, waiting for the Instant Hole to appear so I could fall through it. It was so bad that he’d clock me, even when he gave me 5 points to start AND played the whole game with his left hand (he was right-handed).

Eventually I just played a hybrid of hockey with him, where I’d swing and crack him in the arm or crash my elbow into his chest, distracting him enough that he’d hit the ball like a normal person, rather than a human rocket launcher.

I only learned one thing from Rocket Man, and it had very little to do with the sport he used as a battering ram against my ego. I took a lesson from him, a real one, rather than the kind he gave me when we played together. He showed me some basic stroke production and then he explained everything I needed to master in order to get from beginner to competitive C.

I’m an impatient woman, and so I asked him what I’d need to get from ‘C’ to ‘B’, and then to ‘A’, figuring I would skip all the interim steps and go straight for Racquetball Queen of the Universe. He nodded, as if expecting the question, and then he said, ‘to get from C to B, you must first forget everything you know about racquetball and start over.’

I did what a true “grasshopper” should and cursed him, then took up with my then-college boyfriend Howard Rosen. He was a racquet hack like me, but at least he could keep the ball in play.

I’ve long since given up racquet ball and “contact” sports in general, but I am glad that I met Rocket Man, if only so I could have that little aphorism in my arsenal. Anything that deserves a lifetime of attention requires a lifetime of study. And anything that takes that long to master is going to demand reworking. Tennis is like that. Ditto the martial arts. And weight loss rules them all with a complex-carbo punch.

I keep tossing around this idea that I must change how I view weight loss, and that the new goals will drive me forward. I’ve signed up to race in a 5k run in early June and I look every weekend for The Perfect Weight Bench for the house. I’m pretty well convinced that I should get a step-mill or stair-climber too, since the treadmill is going to be mighty dull this winter, now that I have the taste for outdoor running. And just in case anyone was wondering, no, I will not be racing outdoors this winter. I might love running and I might also love Chicago, but I won’t be doing the Slip & Slide over the sidewalks when the weather turns Canadian. Thanks, but I’d rather get fat. Kidding! But seriously, no, I won’t be Out There, so I’m busy building a gym In Here so I can stay thin and healthy.

But it’s not enough, and anyway, despite deciding on a goal weight, I still can’t figure out how to get there. I wrote this beautiful, hiliarious, post about the How & Why of my goal weight and then, just as I was about to publish it, I balked. It’s not how I feel, and right now, I’m not in That Place. I don’t feel “just a few pounds away”. Goal Weight is miles and miles from here, and it’s as if I’ve suddenly run out of road.

This is exacerbated by the fact that I made WW Lifetime last weekend, and so as far as the Saturday morning crowd-and WW corporate-is concerned, I am Finished Losing. I’m glad I stopped when I did, since I’ve basically been stalled at this weight ever since. Some would call that “Maintenance”. Yes, some, but not me. I just know that I can do better.

The workouts seemed to help at first, but lately, even those have turned against me. Last Thursday, I was 152.0. By Saturday morning, I was edging 155. Monday morning produced 160, and I haven’t even ovulated yet. I have 2 full weeks before period puffiness sets in, and yet Monday night when I took off my shoes, I couldn’t see my ankle bones.

For 10 months, my reaction to this would have been an obvious, “Eat Less”. You’re gaining weight, and that’s what your body knows, so clearly there’s only one remedy. Exhume food from mouth. Less carb, more pickles. Nothing after dinner. Up the fiber to mask the hunger, and do it with popcorn, popcorn, popcorn.

And really, that’s what I wanted to do. But then I had the “Add Fat, you stupid bitch” conversation with Twins, and Howard left (AGAIN) for a week’s worth of travel, taking with him my standard ritual of stuffing myself full of zero-point food after DS’s bed time. Everything I knew was gone. I had to forget it, and start over.

I dug through my closet and found a fitness program I'd purchased 2 years ago from a friend fo Twins, who I'll call "Coach Scientific". I really looked at the nutrition counter and at how he explained body fueling, and how I'd need to eat much more than I had been, if I wanted to shed those last pounds.

I took the plunge. Where once I ate 72 grams of protein a day, I would now eat 140. Where I refused to tickle my tummy with more than 13 fat grams, I would now eat 30. I would embrace carbs, but only when appropriate, I would run until I hurled, I would sleep when I needed it, and I would see if this would work. Starve and Slim had left the building. It was time to eat like a machine.

About half a day into it, I wrote to Twins, explained how I’d changed things and waited for feedback. In a succeeding message, I expressed my frustration, writing, “it feels like I’m starting over.” Twins, who does not credit herself with the wisdom she possesses, replied, “That might not be a bad way to look at it. You kind of are.”

Well then.

I’m almost 3 days in, so there’s no real way to tell how this is going. Twins said it could take a month to convince my body that I’m not actually starving it to death, so it can ‘trust’ me again to let some of my bad fat go. The scale remains about the same, though I weighed in at 158 this afternoon, so I’m encouraged. My ankles still bulge, but it’s better, and while I demurred away from my Super Skinny Pants this morning, I did manage to spend all day in another pair of low rise 6s that managed to stay out of the Up My Butt position, even after lunch.

I’m still struggling to get all my numbers up, but yesterday I ate nearly 120g of protein and had over 20g of fat and 30g of fiber. I ate 6 times yesterday, and after I put DS to bed, I didn’t even bother to go into the kitchen. I didn’t need to: I wasn’t hungry.

Tonight I went running. I hadn’t been since Saturday, when I was sure that I’d injured all my internal organs to such a degree that I couldn’t life or carry anything heavier than a change purse until last night. My inside thigh muscle crabbed right from the first interval run and my hips ached during the last mile, but I ground it out and I finished 4 miles in just under 36 minutes. What’s more, I’m pretty sure I kept a standard pace up through the whole workout, rather than starting like a slingshot and finishing like a slug. I had more spring, more bounce, and no cramps through the whole run, and I even managed to add more time to each interval AND run a couple of doubles in the middle. I didn’t have to stop for an extra rest break at all, and I even ran an extra block at the end, just to make sure my final interval was all run.

That was pretty cool.

I am grateful to Weight Watchers for helping me chop 90 pounds off the Octopus, and I am a member forevermore. I look forward to every meeting, and I’m disappointed when I can’t come. I’m still trying to figure out how to go to my Saturday meeting on my wedding day. I mean, seriously: the meeting is at 8:30 and the wedding isn’t until 6pm. There’s time!

But I think it’s time for WW and I to part as Just Friends. I’m too shy in front of crowds to be a leader, and anyway, that’s Howard’s goal. I’ll keep coming and we’ll have years of memories to share together. But I have to move on now. I’m no longer a fat girl getting skinny, or a skinny girl recovered from her fat. I’m a fit girl, working to fuel my body, and building on the success of my previous journey.

I don’t think I’ll forget everything I’ve learned. I have many priceless memories and tidbits from 10 months of meetings-conversations and confessions and weigh-ins that are a permanent part of me now, one that I hold as dear to me as the return of my Great Love to my life.

What I will forget is the approach to food and the place it takes in my life. Food was something to be wary of, an untrustworthy yet pivotal partner along my weight loss road. Now food is a tool—a piece of the foundation, with each item carefully chosen for the value it brings. I want that tool, and I need the foundation. It is my springboard, and it is my earth…but it is not me.

My body does not define me, as it had for many years, including the thin ones. It used to be the only thing I would remember about myself. I would think about events in my life, and I would know what I weighed, and how much I wanted to lose. I don’t think about that now. I have some pounds I’d like to lose, but none that I must, and none that I feel weigh me down or make me fat. In fact, today, for the first time that I can remember, I was in the presence of a woman visibly and obviously thinner than me, and while I was aware of her and her thinness, I did not compare her to me, and I did not consider myself fat standing next to her.

And then this morning, I didn't get on the scale. It seems I’d forgotten all about that.

A the H(appily Forgetful)

Something Fishy

Fat and I have become reacquainted.

Two weeks ago, when I posted ‘Freakin’ Friday’ and included my daily food intake, I got a call from Twins, who said, ‘you’re not losing weight because there’s not enough fat in your diet.’

Twins has been telling me for 3 years that in order to move fat out of my body, I must first put fat in. At first, I took her advice literally, and ate only fat, figuring that the more I could stuff myself with ‘good’ things, the faster my weight would drop. Guess where that got me? Yup, tipping the scales at 251.0 pounds and wondering why my ‘diet’ wasn’t working.

Then I started WW last year and basically removed fat from my life. Oh sure, there are trace amounts in the garbanzo beans and occasionally a gram or 2 sneaks in from the couscous, but basically I’ve lived a happy and fat free existence for the last 10 months. But the slow losses these last weeks and the irritation that I have only a few (ish) pounds to go before I’m done, while I’m still clearly in weight loss mode irritates me enough to try something new, even if it feels like sliding a cheese grater across my skull.

In order to lose weight, I must eat more fat.

Not just any fat, mind you. Good fat. Yeah, good fat. Sorry, but “good fat” rings right up there with other Impossible to Digest morsels such as ‘pre-pregnant’, and ‘3x petite’. Every time I think about this, I picture myself scooping Crisco straight from the jar or slathering my salad with melted butter. I twitch and I curl up into my wastebasket at work, and then I get behind on my e-mail. What in tarnation is good fat? Olive oil-but not cooked. Then it turns to Trans fat, which is bad. Nuts, but sparingly. Fish oil, preferably still in the fish. Flax seed. No, golden flax seed. No, golden flax meal. So glad I asked. Because you know, one can’t be too careful when it comes to types of seeds that I’ve never heard of before.

The olive oil is out, because 1 teaspoon equals 1 WW POINT. Nuts are also out, because they’re a red light food for me. Twins talks about eating 6 raw almonds a day. I think I can eat 6 almonds before I even get the package opened. Looks like I’ll have to use the supplements. Lucky for me, I already have a little pill-by-the-day that houses my multi-vitamin, my probiotic supplement, my potassium, folic acid, blackstrap molasses iron because, you know, since I’m on a low fat diet, I’m a little bit anemic.

As it turned out, I am having a little bit of fat every day, in my CLA supplements. Conjugated Linoleic Acid (sp?). That’s a fat. This should come as no surprise, since the “tablets” are about as long (and as tasty) as those fake rubber worms you use to catch fish. And speaking of fish, OMG what Guantanamo guard-wannabe invented fish oil supplements? It would have been easier for me to catch a live salmon with my bare hands and squeeze all the oil out of it myself than it would be to swallow these ‘fish gels’. I’m pretty sure if I could fuse 2 of them together, I could make a toboggan. Put 3 together, and I have to stand up to swallow them, because the stack is taller than I am.

I think I understand now why supplementing the diet with fat helps you to lose weight. I can see all the extra calories I’ll be burning by climbing the step ladder to get to the top of the Omega-3 long chain. Forget my little pill bottles. I'd have to use one of Jackie O's old pillbox hats, just to house the fish pills that would then have to work their way down my throat. God help me if one goes sideways. I'd look like one of those cartoon dogs who gets a bone stuck sideways in their throat.

Icky.

I've done it, though. I've downed CLA and fish oil and flax MEAL every day, taking care not to eat it too soon before or after a workout, and staggering it through the day. I do this because Twins suggested it, but also because I need to lie down between supplements. Swallowing somehting as big as DS's head is hard. It conjures up all sorts of memories around his head coming out of me, and then my appetite goes away, and then the last thing I want to do is eat fat. Vicious, awful cycle.

But I've done it. I’ve hated every swallow and I’ve been tensed up so badly this week, ingesting (good) fat that I’ve given myself cramps and heartburn. But I’ve also noticed that I’m a little bit less hungry during the day, and that the flax seed is helping things move along through my system. Howard calls flax meal “nature’s broom”. I’ll just leave it at that.

Last night, I still had some (good) fat to ingest and the only food left for me to eat was jello. Figuring I’d rather ruin my jello than swirl the flax around in water and down it straight, I sprinkled it over my (fat free) reddi-whip. You know what? It wasn’t bad. It turned my dessert into something of a raspberry crunch. In fact, it was decent enough that this morning I stirred the flax into my yogurt. Not bad. Key lime with grains. It’s almost like granola.

So, a compromise at last. There’s fat in my diet-but it’s (almost) all good, and it’s (almost) all in supplements. I’m not drizzling anything over my salad, I’m not draining anything out of the cast iron skillet, and my hunger isn’t as gnawing as it was a week or so ago. Of course, the fish gels still look more like suppositories than vitamins, but hey, I’m getting what I need and I’m not triggering any Bad Food History in my mouth when I swallow them. Believe me-if bad fat tasted like the ‘no fish burp’ capsules, I would have been thin years ago.

152.0 this morning. 99.0 pounds gone, and the next post will tell how many to go.

A the F(at Eater)

Nothing to Fear, But...

I fear the end of the journey.

This morning, I was over at the Northern Illinois University campus, attending a business review that my Awesome Boss (A-B) recommended for me. In addition to this, I went to a seminar earlier in the week, I have a dozen (literally) projects and presentations to build, and today, I joined the executives at their quartile review & pow-wow session.

After 10 years as an independent recruiter, where I was largely relegated to back corners and any place they could put an extra (fat) desk for me to do One Job Only, this is as refreshing as, well, a run in the neighborhood. A-B seems excited about my prospects, and I am devouring his faith and trust in me. I’m loading myself up in a way that is bound to backfire on me, but I’m so gunned to show my ability to run and manage things that I scarcely care. Besides, for the first time ever, I am at last in a relationship that will allow me the freedom to explore something other than being pissed off about my crappy relationship.

Of course Howard is traveling this week for the first time since we’ve been together, and it’s the worst possible week to travel. But even that does not dampen me. I am an employee of this great place, and I might be done losing weight at last.

You’d think that would be a powerful pair of accomplishments, and if I were normal or further away from the Insanity Continuum, you’d be right. But alas, it’s still me, and I can find the lead nickel in a pot of gold.

So, this morning as I was in the bathroom, letting out yet another batch of extra coffee, I caught a good site of myself in the mirror. I was wearing my size 6 pants that are not (embarrassingly) tight, and my size small blouse, that hung on me in a most flattering way. I gave myself the Profile Check, and had to admit that the Octopus was behaving—a marvel, considering that I’m on Day 29 of my cycle. My period is delayed because of my Psycho Workout Schedule, but it’s clearly coming; one look at my face will confirm this. When the Swallows return to my Capistrano face, I can see the last remains of the Belly Creep. But no, today it was fine. Not flat or concave, as I’d prefer, but definitely not protruding, and certainly not an obvious problem area.

Which made me wonder: maybe I’m done losing weight. Howard is not much help in this area. When I ask him how I look, he makes all sorts of yummy noises and declares me perfect. Well, thank you, and the blushing bride in me just gave my fiancé about a thousand points. But the WW buddy stirs in frustration. I still show some obvious Areas of Improvement when I’m nekkid, but I look pretty normal when I’m dressed. How much is left? What’s my final figure? When will I hit true maintenance?

My loss is better than last month’s (at 6 pounds, vs. 4.75), but clearly I’m near the end. And it’s much harder to under-nourish myself when I’m working out, so I expect to keep up this pace, or slower, until the end (149? 145?). My body demands food, and more of it. I’m glad for it; after all, I don’t think I ever really believed that I could keep my previous food count up forever and expect to stay down below the Fat Zone. So, I’m okay to keep the loss slow and the shape/fitness coming. But when is it over? (142?)

I’m frightened to stop losing, because I don’t know how to maintain. Maria the Spectacular mentioned this in an early meeting, saying that WW members are good at losing, and good at gaining—sometimes really good. But we aren’t so good at staying the same. Apart from the high school/college years, my weight has swung like a trapeze artist bungee jumping off of Mount McKinley. I have no success at maintaining, and so it terrifies me to face the fact that I’ll soon stop losing and will have to start ‘staying’.

And of course I wonder if I’m still losing now because I want to hit artificial goals. At 154.0 this morning, I’m down 97.0 pounds from the start. Do I want to go below 151.0, just so I can have lost 100 pounds? Do I need to go to 149.0 so I can drop the big bar on the balance scale? Must I hit 145 because that’s the low-medium range for my height & weight and I want to be comfortably in the middle of normal? Or am I aiming for 142 because that’s the weight I was all through high school and college, and everyone told me at the start of this that I’d never see that number again? And of course these all ask yet another question, that of maintaining it. If I did hit these numbers, could I keep myself there? I don’t know, and I’m afraid to see. Because what if I can’t….

In anticipation of the inevitable Finish Line, I’ve tried to think up new goals that will keep me motivated to stay the same, but I couldn’t think of anything. It feels like a contradiction, to have goals around remaining motionless. And the program loses much of its allure when the ‘final’ outcome is to show no progress at all. The zero-sum is the progress, and the goal-seeking missile in my brain explodes in frustration every time I think of it.

Then I realized that I was trying to build weight loss goals when there would be no more weight to lose. I don’t need to cut my weight down; I need to use it to build the rest of myself up. I need new goals-ones that use my new body as the base and the backdrop for those new tasks. I need things less life-changing and more lifestyle-growing.

So I tried again, and this time I got some things to grab: building up my lean body weight (adding muscle). Running a full 5k without stopping. Squatting my weight. Doing 12 pull-ups without a spotter. Pretty awesome stuff—hard things, all, and most of them I’ve never done before. Just what I needed.

Maybe eventually I won’t even have to think about the weight loss (maintain) piece, except to remember that I eat a certain way, and no other. Perhaps I can think of my body and my thinness as a given to be protected, but not a thing to be feared.

Maybe I can use my success at weight loss to spur other, harder goals for myself. Things like moving into a Director’s role at work, or maybe eventually a VP spot. Or to publish my writing for money, and know that I’d be okay with a book signing, because I don’t have to hide my ‘writer’s spread’ figure. Perhaps it’s starting and finishing the advanced degree that I’ve been salivating to do since the 90s. Or, in that case, a better goal would be to decide on what that degree will be, since I can’t ever decide.

It’s time to let go of the “thinning shears” and move on to the scythe. I already know how to lose weight, and now that I’ve applied my weight loss passion to exercise, I will run off the last pounds with ease-no matter how many (or how few!) remain.

See? Lots of things to do.

This next phase of “the project” requires a shift just as big as the one at the beginning of my weight loss--the one where I decided that I couldn’t label Pop Tarts as a fruit anymore, or consider peanut butter sandwich cookies a natural source of protein. I’ve learned a lot about myself and my life since then. Here’s hoping I can generalize some of those skills to lifestyle and self-improvement. Maybe the Fat Lady can go on vacation for good, and I won’t even notice if she doesn’t write. I won’t miss her, and anyway, I’m the writer now.

A the S(lim, but probably a few more to go)