Someone, I don’t remember who, once said that sculpting and elephant was actually pretty easy.  You started, so the quote went, with a lump of rock and just chipped away everything that didn’t look like an elephant.  It was that simple.

Since I’ve been working on losing weight, one of the things I’ve had to do is a lot of discovering which parts of me were, metaphorically speaking, the elephant, and which were not.  I’ve had to chip away not only at fat, but at a lot of old beliefs that were keeping the fat in place.  Finding the metaphorical elephant has occurred both on the physical and the mental level, and so far it’s been an interesting experience.

On the physical level it’s been about discovering the body that was hidden under the flab.  I’m learning that I’ll always have boobs and hips, but that I’m built more in a classical hourglass shape, with a smaller waist than I would have imagined I’d have.  I’m starting to see definition in my jawline, my shoulders and my calves.  When I flex my muscles you can actually see muscles now.  I’m still adjusting to the idea that my body has parts that are admirable, even pretty.  The more I work on getting fit, the more I see that the sculpture I’m creating may actually be a thing of beauty by the time I get to the end.

While I’m sculpting the outer shell, I’ve also had to do a lot of peeling away on the inside.  I’ve harbored a lot of hatred for my body over the years.  It peeled and cracked and itched.  It reacted badly to sun and heat.  My head had migraines, my eyes didn’t work right, my spine was curved and my heart had fits.   I spent a lot of time dwelling on what my body couldn’t or wouldn’t do, and not much time thinking how incredible it was that, after I’d neglected it for so long, it did anything at all.  After many years of neglect and hatred, I’m learning to let those feelings go and value myself.   It’s a slow process, and I still have days when a litany of “you’re fat, stupid and no one will love you” plays in my head, but those days are getting fewer and farther between.

Mostly, right now, I’m just enjoying the process of becoming.  I’m still a half formed sculpture, but I keep chipping away.  I know eventually I’ll chip away everything that doesn’t need to be, and all that will be left is an authentic and healthy me.

I would probably rather tell someone intimate details of my sex life rather than discuss how much I weigh.  I’ll talk about almost anything before I’ll talk about my weight.  I never, ever, reveal the exact number.  That’s partly because I’m ashamed of the number and partly because I think other people will think less of me if they know.  I know that’s probably a bit over dramatic, but for a long time my self worth and self image were tied very tightly to my weight. Thin, and a low number,  made me desirable and a good person.  Fat, and a high number, made me just the opposite.

I am working very hard to shake a lot of the habits and attitudes that it has taken me 40 years to build.  I’ve been successful, at least in part, with most of them.  I like myself better than I ever have.  My body image is more positive than it’s ever been.  I feel more confident in myself, and I’m more confident of my worth as a person.  I’m learning that my body is capable of doing things, bending, stretching, exercising, that I would have bet it could never do.  I’ve made positive strides in a lot of areas.  Except when it comes to that number.

Intellectually I know that it’s just a number.  What I weigh has nothing to do with what kind of person I am.  What I weigh doesn’t effect how I perform my job or write this blog or go through my daily activities.  A number on the scale doesn’t make me any less lovable or any less intelligent.  I know this in my brain.  I just can’t feel it in my gut.

I do want to try to get over this issue.  My weight is only one small part of me as a person, and a number on a scale shouldn’t hold this much power over me.  So I think it’s time to be brave, as much as it scares me to do it.

I’m going to start posting my weight here.  For right now, I’ll post it once a week at the bottom of a post.   After a while, as I get more comfortable, I’ll probably post a running graph on the sidebar.  As much as this frightens me, I think the only way to stop giving this number as much power as it seems to have is to put the number out there and let the chips fall where they may. So here goes:

Created by MyFitnessPal – Free Calorie Counter

Here’s a dilemma I’m happy to have, but one I haven’t quite figured out how to resolve.  I’m hoping someone may have a suggestion for me.

As I said in Tuesday’s post, I’ve lost 32 pounds.  My problem right now is that all my clothes are getting to big.  I plan to lose more weight, so I don’t really want to spend a lot of money on a new wardrobe that I’ll hopefully be too small for in a couple of months.  I had hoped I could get away with wearing my old clothes for while longer, but some things, especially pants, aren’t going to work.  When I can slip the pants off with out unzipping or unbuttoning them, and I have to jerk them up during the day, it’s probably time to investigate new options.

What did those of you who successfully lost substantial amounts of weight do when your clothes got too big?  One option is belts, or having a seamstress do alterations and I’m considering those.  Another is to buy some bargain basement clothes to carry me through until I get closer to the weight I want to achieve.  I suppose I could find clothes at thrift stores and such, although I may not find anything I really want to wear.

Another option would be to buy just enough clothes to carry me through.  If I get creative with elastic weights and string tie waistbands I should be able to wear those clothes a little longer.  I can also try the clearance section of some of my favorite online shops.  Now that I’m down a few sizes I might be able to find more things that I like.

What I really need are some tips on how the rest of you handled this.  I you have any suggestions, please share them with me in the comments section.

As of this morning I have lost 32 pounds. I knew the weight was coming off, I could feel it in my clothes and I could feel it in the way I moved more easily. I could see my face getting thinner when I looked in the mirror. So I knew the weight was coming off. It is still, however, nice to see confirmation from the scale.

This is now officially the most weight I have ever lost. For years I lost a few pounds here and a few pounds there, but I’d always gain them back. I could never seem to lose the weight and keep it off. I also had trouble sticking to a sensible eating plan and exercise routine. Apparently, at almost forty. I’ve found my willpower and my drive. I’m not sure exactly how or why it happened, but I’m grateful that it did.

I still have a long way to go. Unfortunately 32 pounds is just the tip of the iceberg. Still it feels good to have gotten this far up the mountain, and to prove to myself that I can lose weight if I want to lose weight. I won’t say it hasn’t been work, and I won’t say it hasn’t taken some sacrifice, because it has been work and I have sacrificed some foods I dearly love to eat. Still, I know that losing weight will be better for my health in the long run and that’s what really matters.

I guess the next plateau will be 50 pounds. That’s only 18 pounds away, which is totally doable. I just have to remember to focus on the smaller, more immediate goal and not the larger goal which seems so much further away. If I can just keep taking small steps and doing the right things every day, I know I’ll get to where I want to be. I’m very excited by that thought. Getting thin has been a long and hard process, and I’m glad I finally seem to be getting it right at last.

I have always been a member of the clean plate club. If it was on my plate, providing it was a food I liked, I was going to eat it. Whether or not I was still hungry didn’t matter. If it was put in front of me, I’d hoover it up regardless of whether or not I really wanted the food or whether or not it was too much food. I wasn’t one who believed that too much of a good thing could be bad.

One of the things I realized when I started really working on losing weight was that often my problem wasn’t that I was eating too much of something unhealthy. In my case the problem was that I was eating way too much of something that was good for me. If one pork chop was good, two would be better. Why have a small square of lasagna when you could eat a large square? If one piece of bread was a taste treat, think how ecstatic I’d be after three.

Since I’ve started losing weight, I’ve learned to attend to portion size much more carefully. I have a scale now, and weigh certain foods to make sure I’m not eating a large amount over the recommended serving size. I also work on eating more foods at each meal. My plate may still be full, but now it contains vegetables and grains and protein in proportional amounts.

I’ve also learned to push my plate away when I’m full. I may still overfill the plate on occasion, but now I’ve learned to listen to my body and to say call a halt to eating when my system says I’m full. That means there is often food left on my plate, but I don’t mind that so much. The results of pushing my plate away are showing up in the way my clothes fit and the increased stamina I have when I exercise. That, to me, is worth every bit of wasted food.

If you are struggling with portion size and knowing what is a healthy portion, here are some resources that may help.

Web MD

Portion Distortion Quiz

I’ve lost about 25 pounds. I can see it in my face. I can certainly tell by the way my clothes fit, or don’t fit. I’ve had other people tell me I look thinner. Most of the time I’m pretty proud of myself. The rest of the time I can’t seem to escape the knowledge of how far I have to go.

I guess it’s kind of like the guy who is trying to tunnel out of prison with a teaspoon. You just have to keep digging day after day and measure your progress in increments. If you start thinking about how flimsy your tools are and how long the tunnel is that you have to dig, you’ll never get to the end. It’s the same thing with weight loss. If you celebrate every small milestone, you might eventually get to the big milestone. If you stop along the way and look at how far you have to go until you get to the end, you probably won’t get there.

Most of the time I’m a big picture girl. I like to look at the overall goal and plan all the steps along the way. When it comes to weight loss, however, I’ve had to quit looking at the big picture. The truth is that I have a lot of weight to lose. The other truth is that it won’t come off overnight. If I let myself focus on how long this could all take and how much I have to lose, I probably won’t ever lose another pound. So I don’t let myself focus on that. Instead I focus on how much better I feel and how close I am to losing that next five pounds and let the rest take care of itself.

A piece of writing advice that I’ve always liked says something like this: if you want to write a novel, don’t focus on the fact that you want to write 365 pages. Instead, focus on writing one page every day. At the end of a year, you’ll have a novel.

I think it’s the same thing with weight loss. Don’t focus on the 20 or 50 or 100 pounds you need to lose. Focus on losing one or two pounds a week. At the end of a year, you’ll have lost over 100 pounds. Focusing on the smaller goal eventually helps you get to the bigger goal, and keeps you from getting discouraged.

This morning, when I weighed myself, I realized I’d lost 24 pounds.  That’s 24 actual pounds that I lost through sweat and exercise and eating right.  That shouldn’t be confused with the weight I lost after my first episode of afib.  That was water weight.   This is weight I’ve worked to lose one pound at a time.

I know that, for some people, 24 pounds might not sound like a lot.  For me, however, it is quite an achievement.  It is not only an achievement that I lost the weight, but I’ve kept it off too.  I still have a long way to go until I weigh what I want to weigh, but I’m glad to have made it this far.

This morning I did a typical girl thing.  I’ve kept a pair of pants that I bought a couple years ago and have never fit into.  Don’t ask me why I held on to them, but I’m sure almost every overweight woman has some article of clothing like this.  Anyway, this morning I decided to put those pants on.  When I did try them on, they fit.  It was an awesome feeling.

As I said, I know I have a long way to go.   Still, sitting here right this minute, I feel like I have a real shot at getting where I want to be in regards to weight and health.

That, in case you’re wondering, feels very nice.

I’ve been having an internal debate with myself for the last few weeks.  On most blogs like this, where someone is working to lose weight, there is usually a place where the current weight is listed.  The idea is that you’ll see where the person started from and be able to monitor their progress as they (hopefully) lose weight.   The whole idea does make sense unless, of course, you’re me and don’t ever tell anyone what you weigh.

I’ve made it a point for the last few years to not even know what I weigh.  When I go to the doctor I ask them not tell me what the number is when I step on the scale.  I tend to judge my weight by how my clothes fit and how I feel.  If I’ve gain weight, my clothes are tighter and it is harder to do routine tasks.  If I’ve lost weight, my clothes are looser and I can move more easily.  It’s not a very accurate method, but it has worked for me.

With the advent of the whole afib thing, I’ve been needing to weigh myself more regularly.   I have a scale in my house for the first time in years and I use it.   So, for the first time in longer than I can remember I have real time data about what I way.  I could, were I so inclined, track my weight here on this blog.  I’m just not sure I want to.

Part of the reason why I’m not sure is probably vanity.  I weigh more than I should and not just by a few pounds.  My knowing the number is bad enough.  Seeing the number here on the blog and knowing anyone who wants to do so could read it just makes me uncomfortable.  I guess, in the end, I feel that my weight is really no one’s business but my own.  If I choose to keep the number to myself, than that’s my right.

I’m still not sure what I want to do about this issue.  After all, this blog is meant to be a chronicle of my weight loss and increasing fitness and it seems like tracking the lost weight should be part of it.  On the other hand, it seems like it should be my right to keep that number secret if I choose.  One compromise I’ve thought about is simply chronicling the pounds I’ve lost without mentioning the actual weight.  I’m thinking that might work.

I’m also wondering what other writers who write about fitness and weight loss do regarding this issue.  Were you ever uncomfortable about putting your weight on the blog?  If you did track your weight loss by showing the actual number of pounds you weighed, did it encourage you or discourage you?  I’d love to know what others have done.  I’m thinking it could be a bit help when I make my decision.

I don’t like dieting.  I don’t much like exercise either, until after I’ve done it and then I don’t mind it so much.  Mostly, thinking about my weight depresses me.  Maybe that’s because my weight defined me for so long.  Maybe it is because I seem to have to fight for every pound I lose, but can gain two just by looking at a picture of chocolate cake. 

I am trying to have a new attitude about all this.  I bought a scale and told myself that monitoring my weight was simply the best way to know if my heart issues were acting up.  At first, when I was losing all the water weight, stepping on the scale in the morning was a joy.  Now, it’s torture.  If I’ve lost a pound, things are great.  If I’ve gained a pound, things are awful.  There is also the added fun of wondering if the weight gain is just a normal fluctuation in body weight or if it signals something more dire.  The first moments of my morning really don’t need to be that full of drama.

 The really sad thing is that I do want to be thin, I just want to be thin because someone waved a magic wand and made me that way.  Even though I will be the first to say that fad diets don’t work and that the only way to safely and effectively lose weight is to eat right and exercise daily, I want to add a secret caveat that says that such things don’t apply to me.  I want a weight loss fairy godmother, one who will fly in and make all the excess pounds disappear.

I know it doesn’t work that way.  I know being thinner would be much healthier for me.  I know all the right things to say and the right things to do.  I also am, for the most part, doing those things.  I’m exercising more.  I’m eating a lot better.  I’m much more aware of fat and calories and sodium.  I guess I’m just looking at where I am and how much I want to lose and seeing how far apart those two numbers seem. 

I suppose what I need to do is simply go day to day.  If I just focus on my behavior on a daily basis it is possible things won’t seem so overwhelming.  I’m hoping that’s what happens anyway.  There’s a lot of fighting the pounds ahead of me if I’m to get to where I want to be.  Hopefully taking it on day at a time will get me there in the end.

I had a bit of a stomach virus today.  Nothing horrible enough to keep me home from work and nothing violent enough to make me not want to eat.  It wasn’t that I wasn’t hungry, it was just that everything I ate took the downtown express route (so to speak).  I spent a lot of time today in my office bathroom, and on one of the my trips I had the following unsettling thought.  Hey, I thought, I should have a great weigh in tomorrow after failing to keep any food in my stomach today.

I haven’t talked about it much, but I used to have rather an obsession with weight.  Throughout most of my teens I was told that I should weigh less than I did.  I do believe that my parents genuinely believed they were doing the right thing for me, but years of being on forced diets and watched like a hawk while I ate led to me having an obsession with how much I weighed.  Or rather, having an obsession with how to weigh less without having to stop eating or exercise. 

Once I grew up and went out on my own, I banished scales and diets and ate what I wanted.  Up until my recent heart problem, that’s pretty much how I lived.  I did try to eat better, I did try to exercise more, but I still weighed far more than I wanted to weigh, and I mostly tried to ignore that fact.  I didn’t want my weight to start defining me again.  I wanted to be more than the number I saw on the scale.

Since my heart issues, I now have a scale back in my home for the first time in years.  One of the reliable indicators of heart problems like mine is a large gain in weight in a short time.  Obviously you can feel the weight gain in your body after some time, but the earliest way to catch it is to weigh yourself every day, so I do that.  At first, when I was losing massive amounts of water weight doing the morning weigh in was fun.  Now, when I have to work for every ounce I lose, it isn’t as much fun.

One thing I do know is that I won’t be going back to the old patterns that have caused me problems in the past. I do want to get thinner and healthier.  I don’t want my self worth to be determined by a number on the scale.  I really don’t want to do damaging things to my body in the name of losing a pound.  So, I need to remember that this isn’t the past, and I’m not the same person, and that what I’m doing now I’m doing to live longer and be healthier, not because I think how much I weigh has bearing on how valuable I am as a person.