144-153.... 140?

Stupid numbers. 

Seriously, NUMBERS again? 

Yep, I'm going to talk about numbers again.  This will be the second post in a series about numbers, the first one being "27" a couple of posts ago, and an upcoming post about the numbers on the tags in my clothes. 

Today's post is inspired by a blog entry that I read today by WorkItOutGurl (Stacey), who talked about self-sabatoge. 

Back on January 22 of this year, I finally got into the healthy weight range by both Weight Watchers' standards and BMI's standards.  I weighed in at 154.4 and it was thrilling!!!  I was ecstatic!

me in January, 154.4 pounds, ridiculously happy!

Here's an excert from my WW blog entry that week-
                                                 

                                   I am hoping that in about 20 pounds, I will out of Plus Sizes, but if I'm not...who cares? Size 6 may be "plus size" some day. It's kind of crazy. I feel and look healthy and beautiful at this size. Thanks, everyone, for all of the support as I've made my way down the BMI chart from obese to normal. :-)

I kind of assumed at that point that I would keep on losing a pound a week and would be down to 135 (my original goal weight) within 20 weeks from that point...  Oh, the blinding optimism of one who has never been in the position of having to lose the last few pounds before! 

I actually did continue to lose the next 10 pounds fairly quickly, reaching the next milestone of 145 on May 14 (eleven weeks!).  OMG, I was once again thrilled beyond belief and ridiculously happy with myself.

May 2011- 145 and on top of the world!!!

I was so happy with and proud of myself for reaching this goal.  At this point, I think that I was still reaching for a goal weight of 135, but I started to doubt that I could make that goal, and even doubt whether or not I really wanted or needed to.  I was happy with my weight.

I reset my goal weight to 144, lost one more pound and called myself "done" with weight loss and ready to maintain my new goal weight of 144 forever.

May 28- goal of 144 achieved.  Delirious!!!

...and I was pretty satisfied with my body, but still wasn't 100% where I wanted to be.  At 144, my size 12's and 14's (depending on the brand and cut) fit pretty perfectly, but I was still very soft and jiggly.  I wanted to work on toning and stop caring so much about the scale.

I quit worrying about Weight Watchers.  I tried to maintain 144 with Intuitive Eating and failed, gaining back 9 pounds and getting back up to 153.  Then I tried My Fitness Pal for awhile and actually deactivated my WW account.  I readjusted my goal weight AGAIN down to 140, giving me 13 pounds left to lose. 

I lost some of it, gained some back, lost some more, and have now been basically losing and gaining the same 5-9 pounds since May.  I did finally admit that I needed Weight Watchers Online and rejoined, which was amazing, but I still was not really focused on losing the last few pounds.

So I had to once again ask myself about my goal weight, and whether or not I was happy at a higher weight.

And the answer is:  No.  I really want to get my weight under control once and for all, and weigh about 140 (138-142 WW range).  Currently, I'm maintaining about ten pounds over that (148-152 range) and that is just not okay with me.

I'm ready to lose the last 10 pounds once and for all!  I have finally realized that this is a LIFELONG journey that does not end when I reach my goal weight.  I have never successfully maintained a significant loss until now.  Yes, I still have 5-10 pounds to lose, and yes, I'm still about 5 pounds heavier than my low weight, but every single pound that I lost in 2010 and before?  Still gone.  And that makes me as happy as I was when I reached 145.  :-)

I am basing my current weight of 149.5 on an unofficial birthday weigh-in.  I'm still offially staying off of the scale, but I had a peek and YEP, I gained. 

I'll leave you with a picture of me on my birthday, which was last Friday so it's pretty much what I look like now.  About 10 pounds until I reach goal, and I'm ready to do it.  It's on.

Stacey & me on October 7- weight 149.5

Sorry for the self-centered egocentric post, but I had to get this stuff out there, and this is the best place to do that.  :-)  I hope that you are all having fantastic days! 

P.S.  Day #3 of No Junk Food Challenge and going strong!

My history with the scale, and all about my scale break

I have recently decided to take a break from the scale.  Yes, I know that only a couple of weeks ago I spoke publicly about my plans to wean myself off of the scale, but I just felt like I needed a break sooner rather than later.

My relationship with the scale has been a rocky one from the very beginning.  Well, maybe not from the very beginning (8 lb 4 oz was perfectly acceptable to newborn me... I think.) but definately from around age 11. 

I remember being horrified the day that the scale went from 99 to 100.  Seriously, horrified.  Like I had suddenly moved from one group of people (slim and beautiful) to another one (fat and ugly).  And of course, slim and beautiful was much better than fat and ugly.


Scales should NOT be in the family bathroom!

  And of course, during those terrible eating disorder days (age 19-21), I had a disordered, scary, crazy, messed up relationship with the scale.  Things that are embarassing to write about, but just to give you an example of something that an anorexic/EDNOS person may do:  I had a stack of old magazines beside my scale that weighed how much I wanted to lose.  I would weigh myself multiple times a day, and remove and add magazines to the stack by weight, to remind myself how much further I had to go.  It was always as a punishment for weight gained, not as a reward for weight lost.  Eventually this project became too much even for me, and I abandoned it and moved onto something else. 

But the scale was torture for me.  I wanted, NEEDED to see a smaller number every day.  If the number was the same or (gasp) bigger than the previous day, I would punish myself with worse food restriction and more exercise.


Then, after recovery, it was years before I even brought another scale into my home.  One of the things that was stressed in recovery was to forget about the number on the scale, to focus on health instead of weight.  Something that I had not expected from recovery of anorexia/EDNOS was to switch from restriction of food to overeating.  Apparently, this happens to many recovered anorexics, but I'm so happy that no one warned me of this possibility when I was trying to recover, as it was my worst fear:  extreme weight gain.

I went to the opposite extreme with my eating, and gained a lot of weight.  It was embarassing for me, to say the least.  Family members were super supportive of this development, probably because they were terrified with how skinny I had been the previous year and they wanted me to live.  Overweight/obese doesn't always equal unhealthy, but in my case it definately was.  Anyway, I kept on feeding my emotions with food and avoiding the scales, while having to go shopping for new (larger) pants every few months.  This continued for a couple of years, until I looked like the "before" pictures over on the side of this page.


This is a number that apparently we should all want to see? 
Why is it always something like this on the box for scales? 
Not cool, scale companies.  Not cool.



I had to find a better way.  Extreme eating (either under or over) and extreme weighing (several times a day or not at all) clearly were not the answers.  There had to be another way to go about this, a way to learn about moderation.  A way to diet without getting tempted to go back to severe restriction and a way to weigh myself without being tempted to go back to multiple daily weigh-ins. 

That's when I found Weight Watchers, and really learned a new way to eat and weigh.  Eat everything in moderation and weigh myself once a week.  (Of course, this blog post is oversimplifying a lot, since there is limited space, but I also began seeing an amazing therapist, who helped me to see that overeating was not the answer to my problems, and WW wasn't always so easy).

Weight Watchers completely turned my life around.  Weighing in once a week was the balance that I had been craving for years.  It was a great way to see how I did that week, and to make sure that the scale was going in the right direction.  Seeing that number on the scale (220) was terrifying at first, but I soon was only focused on the journey, and my mini-goals (as well as my big ultimate goal weight) and knew that 220 was in the past.

So when did this weekly weighing become a problem?

Quite recently.

I have been giving too much power to the number on the scale again.  If it's a "good" number, I give myself permission to overeat that weekend as a reward, and if it's a "bad" number, I give myself permission to overeat that weekend as a pity party.  Either way, it is overeating.

I was starting to get a little crazy with the number again.  I do want to reach my goal weight of 140, and I do think that it's very possible to do so.  So when the scale stopped going down (going from 145-148, up and down but always in that range) I began to start... feeling fat again.  Which I know is stupid.  I'm in a normal and healthy weight for my age and height and my clothes still fit.  But for whatever reason, I was letting the number get to me.

Since starting my break from the scale a couple of weeks ago, I've noticed a few positives. 

1) I am tracking my food and exercise for the sake of tracking.  It's not about my weight right now, it's about my health.  I'm following Weight Watchers, and doing everything "right".  I know that by doing this, my weight will go down, so I'm not worried about my weight right now.  Tracking is just for tracking, and for learning about portion control again, and rediscovering the joys of fresh fruits and vegetables.

2) My weekend eating has nothing to do with the scale.  It's still junk-food-y compared to the work week, but that's just what I eat on the weekends!  It's not a reward or pity-party anymore.  I am tracking my PointsPlus and my calories, and am enjoying my weekend food and activity more than I have in months.

3) I don't care how much I weigh.  Right now, at this moment, I just don't care.  I'm feeling great about my body and my food and exercise choices.  Life is busy, but great.  There is too much going on to worry about something as silly as the number on the scale. 

And... that's it.  This is a loooooooong post, and if you are still reading, bless you.  :-)  I do plan to go back to regular weigh-ins, because I know that never weighing can be as bad for me as constantly weighing.  I will probably step back on the scale in mid-November.  For now, I'm enjoying the break.

and...GOAL!

I promise to talk about this in more detail soon, but for now- here's a picture of me yesterday.  The significance of this picture:  It was taken right after I found out that I officially made it to my goal weight of 144 (actually surpassing it by a bit, weighing in at 143.8)

Now I must get back to celebrating and having a great holiday weekend with Stacey!  I hope that you are all doing fabulously.  My next entry will talk about how I got to goal and how I am feeling now.

Another reminder to ENTER THE BOOK GIVEAWAY!!!  Last entries accepted June 1.

Intuitive Eating - Rejecting the Diet Mentality (IE Day 1)

Around noon today I decided to JUST DO IT and start my Intuitive Eating program.  I've made another big decision, and that is to increase my goal weight to 144.

If I end up losing more weight as I switch from Weight Watchers (WW) to Intuitive Eating (IE), that is okay with me.  I just want to find my "happy weight", a weight that I can maintain easily and naturally.  I think that my body has just about found it for me, as I feel quite healthy and pretty at 144.2.

I know that you all will support my decision to start IE now rather than wait.  I also know that you will support me if I later change my mind and go crawling back to WW.  You guys are just cool like that.  :-)

I am going to practice one step of IE at a time.  I'm going to start with the first principle of IE: Reject the Diet Mentality.

I'm going to quote the book quite often, just so you know.  Here are my favorite quotes from Chapter 5 of the book, which discusses in detail the first principle.

REJECTING THE DIET MENTALITY:
"Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you the false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently.  Get angry at the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight.  If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating." (p 40)

THE DIET VOID
"For many people, dieting has been a way to cope with life,  from filling up time, to exercising a semblance of control." (p 41)

"But when you say good-bye to the thrill and excitement of dieting, you'll also be letting go of the false hope and disappointments from dieting." (p. 41)

PSUEDO DIETING
Some examples of psuedo dieting:

"Eating only 'safe' foods"
"Paying penance for eating 'bad' foods"
"Pacifying hunger by drinking coffee or diet soda"



The Dieter's Dilemma (p47)

 In case you can't read the print in this picture: Desire to be thin--->Dieting--->Cravings/Reduced self-control--->Loss of control/Overeating--->Regain of lost weight--->Desire to be thin

HOW TO REJECT THE DIET MENTALITY
1. Recognize and acknowledge the damage that dieting causes.
      a. cause satiety cues to atrophy
      b. linked to eating disorders
2. Be aware of diet-mentality traits and thinking
     a. forget willpower- "While no doctor would expect a patient to "will" blood pressure to normal levels, physicians frequently expect their patients to "will" their weight loss by restricting their food."
     b. Forget being obedient.
     c. Forget about failure.
3. Get rid of the dieter's tools
     a. The scale!!! "Best bet - stop weighing yourself."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hmmmm.... I don't know if I'm ready to completely give up the scale yet.  Everything else, however, I'm putting into effect immediately, and will be focusing on rejecting the diet mentality.  I will discuss the second principle next week.  Meanwhile, I'll let you know how my experience with IE is going.

Goal Weight Identity Crisis? Also, thinking about IE again...

About my Goal Weight Identity Crisis

Once again, I'm wondering if I should increase my goal weight.


I got into my goal clothes this weekend, and the goal jeans are just...too...tight...!!!

I'm wondering if losing 9.2 more pounds will be enough to fit into them.

Furthermore, I'm wondering if it's even healthy for me to be trying to get into the jeans that fit me when I was at my lowest weight ever (135 - my current goal weight) that I only got into by starving myself with disordered eating when I was 19 years old.

Perhaps it's time to give these "goal jeans" away and to start focusing on loving my healthy body? Adjust my goal weight to 142-145 and begin to maintain within the next month or two?? Or even begin to maintain now?!

I know that this is a personal decision that I have to make for myself, but I thought that I would throw this out there to you guys anyway. I don't know if I'm looking for advice, encouragement, empathy, or just looking to be heard. Just wanted to share.

Because I'm starting to think that I could pretty easily maintain 75 pounds lost, but 85 pounds lost may be tough for me.

And I'm really starting to wonder if I should donate those size 10s and 11s that fit anorexic Leah. Stop worrying about if I will ever fit into them again. Size 12s, 13s, and 14s all fit (depending on the store/brand/cut) and look fantastic on me. Why do I care if I fit into the 10s and 11s?

Sigh... what a "problem" to have, right? Wondering whether or not I should stop losing weight, because I'm healthy and happy as I am.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
About  my Intuitive Eating thoughts
 
So.............  I'm considering doing another experiment with Intuitive Eating!  Yes, I know that just a few posts ago I said that I was going to let go of my IE dream, but I think that I spoke too soon.
 
I'll let you know what I decide, but I think that since I'm questioning my goal weight, IE may be the best way to go.
 
Supposedly, if I listen to my body's hunger signals 100% and follow the criterea of IE, my body will settle at the weight that it's supposed to be at.  I'm starting to think that my body likes being at 144-145, but I may surprise myself and lose a little more with IE.  Or, the opposite could happen and I end up gaining a bit.  Surprisingly, I'm actually OK with gaining a bit as long as I don't get back into the 150's. 
 
Anyway, I'm going to re-read my Intuitive Eating book and report back what I decide.
 
No matter what I decide with my eating, I am going to keep on updating with monthly measurements posts for a while, and keep on toning up with exercise.  Also, I will continue eating mostly Power Foods and always try to listen to my hunger signals.  And keep up with the number one rule: Everything in moderation!!!

Goal weight reset again!

I've changed my goal weight back to 135. No rush to get there. And I may change my mind again... But I'm happy with this decision, and look forward to fitting into my skinny jeans by my birthday! (Okay, that may be a rush... 12.8 pounds by October 7th? I think it's reasonable.) Time will tell... I've also started a new "plan" for myself. I track on SparkPeople, and stick to their guidelines through the work/school week. Then on Saturday, I don't track, but try to make mostly healthy decisions and listen to my hunger signals, allowing myself a few "treats" like Amy's pizza and/or a vegan cupcake. ;-) On Sunday, I track, but only pay attention to calories, not the other macronutrients that SP wants me to look at (fat and protein). I've already stopped counting carbs, I love that SP lets me choose which nutrients to track! The carb goal was just unrealistic for me. As a vegan, even a healthy-eating vegan, I just cannot count carbs! My diet is at least 60% carbs most days. And I'm fine with that, since almost every single carb I eat is a complex/healthy carb. Exercise plan: Switch it up!!! I'm sticking to this, and loving it. This week's plan is so awesome. I've realized even more lately how much I love to exercise. I finally understand the women who have said for years, "Exercise is my 'me' time." It really is! When I'm exercising, I don't worry about either work or school. All that's on my mind is health and happiness. :-) Anyway, that's my plan for now, and it's simple, healthy, and once again: Everything in moderation. Ahhhh, I love the freedom of creating my own diet and exercise plan. Sparkpeople tells me that I will be at my goal weight by August 1. Since I'm kind of doing my own thing on the weekends, I have no clue whether or not this will be true for me! But that would be AWESOME with all caps. For now, I'm setting my goal for my birthday, October 7. Calendar goals aren't motivating for everyone, but they really work for me. (Remember "Lose 50 in 2010"? Loved it!) I hope that all of you are having fabulous Mondays! (oxymoron??) Sorry for the lack of paragraphs, I don't know why blogger does this to me sometimes!!!

Gulp...

I have officially updated my goal weight to ten pounds higher than my original goal weight...

New number: 145.

That will take some getting used to! I have been dreaming of "135" for so long that "145" just doesn't look right.

But I know in my heart that I will be very happy at 145, and will not need to get down to 135.

How do I know this? I'm pretty darn happy at 151, and was actually pretty happy at 161, to be honest. I want to get to 145 because I'm still a little "fluffy around the edges" and would love to tone up. 6 pounds should be more than enough to help with that. Plus I would love to have a little more wiggle room in regards to any possible "holiday weight gain" that tends to happen to me annually...

So... I only have 6 pounds to lose until I reach my goal weight?!

How did that happen? :-)

So close!

I am very close to reaching my next mini-goal of 170, which will be a total loss of 50 pounds! I now weigh (drumroll, please) 170.8 pounds. Therefore, I have to lose .8 to get to that goal. Wow, that's amazing! I can't wait to get there. Once again, I have multiple big weight loss goals right in a row. Last time it was around the 200 pound mark.

My goals looked like this on February 22, 2010:

200- 20 pounds lost! (reached March 1, 2010)

199- ONEderland! (reached March 8, 2010)

198- my first 10%!!! (reached March 8, 2010)

This time around, my goals look like this:

170- 50 pounds lost!

169.9- Goodbye, 170's!!

Okay, so that's only 2 goals in a row this time, but still. My goal for this week is to work hard enough to lose one whole pound. That way on Saturday, I will hit both of these goals at once. And boy, will it feel great. :-)