Chronicles of a Late Bloomer

Because I have so much weight to lose, it generally takes a while before people visibly register the changes in my size and shape. Historically, it takes about 40 pounds (or, over 10% of my body weight) before people start to ask if I’ve changed my hair or bought a new blouse. What they really mean is, “You look thinner,” but at my massive size, their brains still have a problem using any variation of the word “thin” to describe me. One good friend asked me if I were sick or had been screened for cancer after I lost that magical, noticeable amount of weight. It took some doing, but I was able to eventually take that as a compliment.

It’s confusing for my viewers because really, I’m not thin. I’m just thinnER. Still, when I realized a few weeks ago that I had achieved my 40-pound and 10% goal, I knew it was time for people to start noticing. And, notice they have — to the tune of 8 people just last week.

Last night, my ex and I were sorting through some old photos and came across one that was taken when he came home with me last Christmas. We both gasped in shock. Somehow, me weighing 360-some-odd pounds had been lost on us, back then. There we sat in the photo, smiling at the camera, and I at well over twice his size. I was a cascade of chins and dimples and folds.

No, I’m not implying that I look dramatically better today, but the difference was so noticeable that we talked about it, off and on, for the bulk of the evening. He was particularly baffled. He just couldn’t figure out how all of that extra weight had gone unnoticed by him. (I knew why — and it’s the reason that I stayed with him so long.)

All of this is to say that people are starting to notice.

Celebrating: 5.6 BMI points and 12% of my “starting” weight gone!

Grateful for: always having room for improvement.

Starting weight: 354.6 pounds
Last week: 313.6
This week: 312.0
Change this week: -1.6
Total change: -42.6
Next milestone: 45 pounds gone

This week’s mantra: Losing weight is nice, sure, but let’s focus on fitness.

It occurs to me that the two thoughts that have been bouncing around my head may be more related than I am giving them credit for.

The first is a buzzing halo of “hmmm” circling around a story I heard on the local news this morning. Apparently, a man was found dead in a parked car, on which sat a parking ticket. Investigators think he may have been dead when the ticket was issued.

The second thought is a general sense of gratitude and bewilderment about my current frame of mind. I have been thinking, in recent days, about how emotionally effortless this round of dieting has been, and wondering what makes it different from all of my other attempts. I have allowed myself to make 80% “perfect” choices and 20% “other.” Honestly, even my “other” choices are not nearly as wild as they once were; we’re not talking chocolate eclairs and ice cream sundaes so much as whole-wheat sourdough french toast that I make for company, or mango with sticky rice (my ultimate weakness). I’m hesitant to say this out loud, but I have — even on weeks where I didn’t focus too much on it — been able to consistently lose weight. It’s slow going, yes, but it’s consistent.

Now it occurs to me that perhaps these two thoughts are connected. I am beginning to think that all of the years I spent in working on myself — intensive psychotherapy to hunt out my binge-eating issues, journaling, painting, reading, trial and error, self-talk — is beginning to pay off. I simply don’t need food as I once did; although I need it physically, I don’t need it emotionally.

It’s still difficult for me to make time and energy for cooking healthy food. Honestly, I am tired of doing dishes and each time I pack my lunch in tupperwares, my dish duty quadruples. (Oh, for a dishwasher!) I struggle to find time and energy for official exercise, but I do make an effort to take the stairs and park at the far end of the lot. All in all, though, I am sleeping well and setting good boundaries and taking time to be careful with myself.

I guess the connection between my two morning thoughts is this: for years and years, I focused on the symptoms, rather than the causes, of my internal and external distress. In essence, I gave myself punitive parking tickets in the midst of a life-and-death crisis. Years later, all of that awful, slogging, introspective work seems to finally be bearing fruit.

We’ll see how this all holds up as I approach the 300-pound mark — a mark that I have never been able to cross in my adult life. But, for today, I am calm and at peace. It’s a nice feeling.

Celebrating: 40 pounds gone!

Grateful for: having my internet access back this week.

Starting weight: 354.6 pounds
Last week: 315.0
This week: 313.6
Change this week: -1.4
Total change: -41.0
Next milestone: 45 pounds gone

This week’s mantra: As silly as it sounds, this week I want to focus on FITNESS and FLOSSING. (Of course, this morning I had a little waxing-at-home accident which also means that the words ALOE VERA and RAW SKIN IN AWFUL PLACES are going to figure in prominently, too.)

Celebrating: Recovery from medical emergencies.

Grateful for: Eggs. I dunno, I just feel affectionate toward their protein-y, yellow-y, jiggle-y goodness today.

Starting weight: 354.6 pounds
Last week: 325.8
This week: 315.0
Change this week: -10.8
Total change: -39.6
Next milestone: 40 pounds gone (just 0.4 pounds away!)

This week’s mantra: 10 pounds? Man, that was a big cyst.

My favorite brother was in town this weekend to help me work on a video project. Naturally, I tried to stay with my “mostly right” line of food choices and accepted the fact that entertaining my brother would likely result in a small gain on the scale.

So, you can imagine my surprise when, on Saturday — a mere halfway through his visit — I stepped up and found that I had gained over 8 pounds. I was all the way up to 325.8, in spite of being “mostly” on track. Ouch.

The double (quintuple) ouch came Sunday afternoon, about 2 hours after I took him to the airport and said goodbye. My ex-boyfriend was over and we had a nice healthy salad lunch at our favorite cafe. Then, as we settled onto the couch, I said, “Man, my tummy hurts. Maybe I ate too much salad.”

Well, the pain gradually worsened until I doubled over, held my stomach, groaned, and said, “Maybe food poisoning?”

Of course, I hadn’t eaten tomatoes or jalapenos at lunch, and the pain just kept coming. I broke into a sweat that quickly soaked through my hair and clothing and made it look like I had just sprung, fully-clothed, from a refreshing shower. It didn’t take long for me to soak the couch and render it unusable, while I writhed and moaned in pain. The ex, while sweet and very helpful, was obviously freaking out. I’d seen the look before — the “trying to be supportive but scared out of his mind” look. The last time I saw it, I was already on my way to the emergency room.

I knew exactly what was happening — and going to the emergency room wouldn’t help. It was an ovarian cyst rupture, and there was nothing to do but wait it out. Ex-boyfriend stood over me, fanning me with a hand towel and alternating telling me funny stories with giving words of gentle support.

Then, as I knew from previous experience that it would, the pain suddenly subsided. It took about 20 minutes to go from a 10 down to a 7, which is apparently the pain level where I still hurt, but not so much that I’m incapable of crying. The tears came, then, in a great flood, adding to the soaked-through sweat of everything. It was over.

Now, two days later, my weight is back down under 320. I can’t help but attribute the killer gain and loss to whatever monster ovarian cyst chose to squat in my innards and then, finding the accommodations inadequate, blew out of there like a tumorous Hindenberg. We’ll see how this week’s weigh-in goes, but I have a feeling that all will be right with the world again.

Celebrating: No trip to the emergency room this week.

Grateful for: The sheer luck of not being alone when my innards erupted.

Starting weight: 354.6 pounds
Last week: 318.2
This week: 325.8
Change this week: +8.6
Total change: -28.8
Next milestone: complete recovery from medical trauma.

This week’s mantra: Next time, bring more towels.