Hiatus

This is the last one for a while.  I have finally said everything I can about diet, weight, and feeling fat.  I have 16 pounds to go or so, will check in again in July.  Thank you for your support!

Sunday night

We went out to eat on Wednesday as our downstairs is being retiled and the refrigerator and stove are non-functioning.  It was a family eatery, and the place was hopping.  There were tons of temptations – hamburgers, fish and chips, French fries, fried clams, pizza, pasta etc.  After much mulling over the menu and sighing, I finally settled on the house salad.  It was huge but without tons of dressing a great meal for me.  We even took home a doggie bag of salad.  I was fascinated by what everyone was eating – huge portions of fried food. Each portion was easily 1000 calories.  I think we all have such a love affair with food –eating is so satisfying. Feeling full feels great to me.

 

The weight continues to slowly drop – old clothes are beginning to fit.  Life is good!

Trying to get it right

I met friends for dinner the other night at a local restaurant. I scanned the menu looking for the most healthy, least caloric meal. I finally decided on the baked scrod with no starch but an extra helping of vegetables. I ignored the bread (not the glass of wine). When the meal came, the fish was baked and served in a large pool of butter. It was delicious! I probably should have ordered the lasagna if I wanted less calories.

My daughter-in-law tells me that doctors are seeing so many obese women that 300 pounds is no longer strange. Whereas 200 pounds used to be considered big, the bar has been raised to 300. I do think it is all the food that is available – all processed and loaded with calories that is making this a fat country.

I must say that this seems to me a long time (you too, I am sure) and the results have been less than stellar. Young people and men drop weight so quickly, and my 24 pounds over 3.5 months, that is 14 weeks – has been so slow. Here is a picture of me in London at the Camden Town canals. I am still wearing black!

We are in London for the week and staying at a friend’s apartment. It is quite luxurious not to be in a cheap hotel, as is our usual custom. There is only one problem a five by five foot mirror in the bathroom. In order to get to the shower, one must pass by this gigantic mirror. I was shocked the first night to turn around and see myself stark naked. It is not a flattering mirror, some are, but this one is definitely not. So after I recoiled, I decided to really look. There are rolls of flesh, but I can see the beginnings of a shape taking place. If I had had this mirror, scales and non-elastic pants near me everyday, I doubt whether I would have let myself get this way. They may be the best diet tools that exist!

By the way, Nev stepped on the scales only to learn that the weight was in stones. When he tried to calculate stones to pounds, he said his weight was 328 pounds. Something wrong there………

I heard the word “corpulent” the other day. I think I would not like to be called “corpulent.” A friend once said she saw on her medical record, “morbidly obese” and it was devastating. I think being overweight makes me hide. I hide in jackets and big sweaters. I hide by not looking in the mirror. I hide by not weighing myself. I wonder if that spills over to other parts of my life.

Reduction

Those of us not blessed with a hyperactive metabolism are always in a continual battle – we love to eat so we gain weight – we hate getting fat so we are always fighting that love to eat. Sometimes it is hard to take on that battle because food is instantly rewarding and comforting. If there are upsets or challenges, food becomes even a greater solace. And, if you are like me, you can pretty much deny anything is happening with elastic waistbands and throwing out the scale. It’s easy to tuck away the too tight clothes into the back of the drawer. Eventually they get moved down to the basement or the guest room closet for permanent storage.

Nev has Photoshop and can retouch - this is called the pinch - it knocked off 20 pounds in seconds. 

It’s funny how often we use an event as an excuse to overeat. Nev went on a fire call this am with the volunteer firemen. After the fire, everyone went to the firehouse for bacon and eggs and sweet rolls. A slimmer fireman declined saying he didn't need caffeine and grease. Vacations, nights out, holidays, even fires – calories don’t count on those special occasions. One vacation with Sally, we ate our way through Sicily – cannoli, gelato, mmmmm. It was easier when two of us were doing it.

Lisa tells me that our grandmothers and great grandmothers were nice to themselves and accepted being overweight. They wore sensible shoes and dresses and looked like every other grandmother in the village, portly. Times have changed, and we don’t want to look like our grandmothers. So I was surprised when an old friend handed me a letter that was addressed to my great grandmother in the early 1900s. It was a weight loss and exercise program by mail. She was a forbidding woman, head of a private school. People quaked around her. But here is this letter, rather patronizing, congratulating her on losing nine pounds and urging her to continue. She must not have been happy at all with her weight. I don’t think that she succeeded in keeping the weight off. This is one of my favorite pictures of her with my aunt when she was a baby. It was around 1905, and Great Grandmother Sanford was in her 50s.

Feedback Needed

I told Nev the other day that I needed more feedback from him. I am down 18 pounds, and he has not said much. From him, I expect a daily two second nudge – “you go, girl” or “you look good” or something along that line. If I ask him, he will say something like, “It’s hard to tell, I see you everyday.” This is the engineer in him, but not necessarily something that reinforces my resolve. Of course, having told him this, he says something nice about how I look at least once a day, but now I am not sure I believe him. (He can’t win.)

The amazing fact is that 18 pounds is a lot, but not enough. I still have 22 pounds to go to slimness. You will note that I am wearing my traditional black. So I look different – my friend, Pam, tells me my “behind” is smaller. I remember several years ago, someone at work one day looked very slim. She said, “Finally someone noticed, I have lost 17 pounds.” So I have the next 18 pound weight loss to look forward to and big changes! Meanwhile each week everything gets a little looser. The winter coat is no longer tight; the red vest (that Carla tells me to dump) is almost not tight. It is at the size that you would try on and say, “It’s a little small, so I don’t think I will get it.”

We went to a concert last night; 90% of the male singers had sizeable potbellies. They were mainly dressed in snug turtleneck shirts. Most men hide their weight pretty well – it seems to settle in the belly. Women gain all over. It was clear that everyone was told to wear black, and men chose the turtleneck shirt. Most of the women were overweight too, and many wore voluminous jackets. I wasn’t sure what looked worse – too tight shirts covering an inner tube (the men) or mountains of cloth hiding the whole person (the women).

New/old pants

This week I put on pants that were much too tight before, and they fit. They are a large. Sizes vary so much now that I have mediums and larges in my closet. I must say I love it when mediums fit, but I know deep down inside that I am a large. But I was surprised and dismayed when a large did not fit me, and I tucked the pants in the “doesn’t fit” drawer. It was delightful that I could finally wear them! I have a whole drawer of new clothes that don’t fit, but soon will – not old clothes but clothes that I bought without trying on and came home to find that they were too tight.

My husband decided to lose a few pounds and took off three pounds in two days. I did more physical exercise and ate less. Unfair!!!! He said he felt fat at being five pounds overweight!

I was looking at pictures of Eleuthera. I was surprised to see how I looked in pictures of me walking on the beach. I look big still. I don’t think of myself as big but now on the border (okay, there is a distance to go) of being normal. When I look in the medicine cabinet mirror, I never did or now see myself as fat. I think that is why random photographs always shock me – who is that woman and how come she looks that way? Our ability to re-size ourselves in the mirror is such a great gift. Otherwise most of us would be depressed every morning.

It’s a funny thing on how I judge photographs of myself. I look first to see how fat I look. If I look thinnish (when I am thinnish), the photograph is okay. 

I never made it to Weight Watchers as I didn’t got home in time from an afternoon meeting. Maybe this week! I did take out the book and counted my points faithfully. Someone saw me the other day and said, “You have lost a lot of weight.” I wanted to hug her!