It's Monday and my pain is gone. Well, the muscle aches I had from switching things up last week are gone, my right shoulder is still hurting and i don't forsee an end to that anytime soon. Maybe as the muscles around it grow stronger, it'll sort itself out.
Did a full workout this morning and it felt good. While I know I'm not burning as many calories as I used to doing cardio for 70 minutes, my body feels like its been worked and I like that. I know I'm getting stronger and the payoff in the end will be good. Once my body settles into the routine and my muscles start to grow, the calories will burn off again. Or at least that's the hope.
The weekend wasn't too great, but not too bad I suppose. Shouldn't have had so many tacos Saturday and definitely shouldn't have done popcorn either. At least not until I see how things are going with my routine. As long as I'm about 185-190lbs by summer, I'll be happy. That's 15-20lbs, a weight so many people would love to have as their goal instead of the 40-50+ so many actually do.
Red said something the other day that rang quite true. She said that back in the day when we were big, it was nothing to drop 20lbs, you didn't even have to think too much about it. And that when you're trying to drop a measly 10lbs, it's the hardest thing to do. God, I can remember when I signed up with the Weight Loss Clinic, I lost 12.3lbs over the first weekend I was on their program. They were all ecstatic, there was this chalkboard they used in the lobby where people could write down their losses, sort of a badge of honour. Someone said they didn't think anyone had lost that much over a two day span at the clinic, so my loss was a big deal. At least they made it out to be one.
But when you're heavier, dropping 10 or 20 is as easy as not making that trip to the McDonalds for a couple of days, maybe drinking water instead of pop or juice and not wolfing down a bag of chips. In short, it's mostly bloat. And the bigger you are, the more bloated you are. When you're only 20lbs from your goal weight, it's real fat you're trying to lose and it's not going without a fight. This is very common and it's incredibly frustrating. Red has been trying to shed 10lbs for what seems like months now. She seems to make some progress, maybe 3-4lbs, then it goes back up. Sometimes its monthly and there's nothing she can do about it, but other times, it's like me: she makes a few bad decisions and voila! An extra few pounds she has to re-lose.
My issues have been this inability to get below 200 and stay there. If you recall, I reached 207 last December before the Christmas goodies started coming out. Since then, I've been losing and regaining 10lbs and to be quite honest, I'm starting to lose my shit with this. At end of August, I was 196 and thought I had left 200 behind. But a week off work, then an inability to get things under control again led me back to 203. On Friday I was 205, but some of that is water retention from my new workout, so I'm probably still 202-203. If it weren't for the missteps I seem to keep making, I would have reached my goal of 185-190 by last summer. Instead, I'm stuck in a whirlwind from which I cannot escape.
I wonder sometimes if maybe 200 is where my body wants to be. That maybe my lifestyle suits 200. Back in the early 2000's when i was in college and still under the control of my stomach stapling, I floated between 204-207. But there are similarities between then and now. For the most part, I was sitting for the day, then in a classroom, now in a cubicle. I went to the gym 4-5 times a week then and now. I ate junk back then, juices, basically no fruit or veggies, real pop, popcorn at the movies, etc. Now I eat healthier, no junk, diet pop, lots of fruit and veggies and I'm still stuck around 200. When I graduated in 2004, while waiting for my first job out of college, i worked full time in a paint store and within a few months, I had dropped to a nice 180lbs. So it's pretty obvious the extra mobility and exercise I was getting in that job was beneficial to me.
So how to rectify that now? We try to take walks during the evening when we can although we've been remiss lately. Both of us do take walks during our lunch hours if the weather's decent so that helps a bit. On the other hand, we do play volleyball on Wednesday nights, softball on Thursdays during the spring and summer, and currently we're in a rock and jive dance class so we're getting some exercise a couple of nights a week in addition to my going to the gym and Red's Nintendo Wii workout. Frankly, I don't know what else I can do without giving up even more food.
Sure, I could avoid grabbing a slice or two of pizza once in a while during lunch, or not make a trip to the cafeteria at work for a turkey sandwich. But when all you bring to work for lunch is a bag of salad and some apples and pears, a sandwich shouldn't be such an issue. Or I could see about not having those grapes or pineapple in the evening and instead have some cucumber or other veg if anything at all. But i just don't want that. Most times, I do eat out of boredom and not hunger so I probably should find a way to occupy myself better.
All I know is that I'm tired of watching what I eat. I hate not being able to grab a bag of chips and just enjoy them without all the guilt. We've been talking about ordering up some KFC for a change but I haven't been able to pull the trigger on that one yet. I'd love to order a bag of popcorn at the movies once in a while and not think too much about it, or even grab a pretzel or two (because they're small and sooooo good), but i won't. I know the gym is a life sentence and I can't afford to not go so I grit my teeth and bear this cross. The truth is, this is my life for better or for worse. I haven't mastered the art of only enjoying a small sampling of something i crave, to me, if you can't just indulge and enjoy it, what's the point. A taste is just a tease. And I hate to be teased. But when you're unlucky enough to be one of those people who gain weight just by looking at food, you really don't have a choice. If you care at all.
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