Sunday, April 3, 2011

Weigh-in no. 31

In an effort to push myself to see the changes happening to my body, I've started taking more pictures.  Those who follow me on Facebook have seen them already.   This picture to the left was me on Thursday this past week, before I left to go to work.

I have to admit though - I'm still struggling to see the change although others tell me they see it.  Weight loss bloggers sometimes talk about having body dysmorphic issues - and some of it sounds familiar to my experience.  But I seem to have two things going on: I see both a skinny person and a fat person when I look in the mirror.  No, I don't see two people, but it's a weird combination of:

1) not seeing the changes from my weight loss and still feeling like I look like a blob
and 

2) not being able to see just how big I am in the mirror, which allowed me to get to be the size I was in the first place.

So, needless to say, I don't trust the mirror or my perceptions of myself.  And so, I decided I needed to take pictures more.  To keep a photographic record of the change.  To be able to put photos side by side and prove to myself, to be able to say, "See!  You've done this!"  It's still uncomfortable for me, but I think it needs to be done.

And yet, I found myself taking pride in the muscle definition in my arms when I was swimming this week and Jim keeps telling me my butt is disappearing.  I have a hard time believing him, but it's nice to hear.

In other news....

getting ready to go swim
It's Week 2 of going to the gym 4 times over the course of the week.  Not bad!  What has enabled this change, however, has not been a new dedication to the gym but a change of circumstances which provide the opportunity.

See, we live about 20 miles from the gym - and by U.S. standards, that's not much but for here and with the price of fuel (we're at about $8.50/£5.15 per gallon), going into town since January has been either because of absolute necessity or an intentional 'luxury'.  My car only got about 25 mpg (again, by US standards not that bad, but for here it's atrocious) and so each trip into town cost me about £10/$15.  So I'd consolidate everything I needed to do into two trips per week, which included the gym.

But this past week, I sold my car.  Only being able to afford two trips into town per week was ridiculous.  And Jim's car gets much better gas mileage, so we're down to 1 car for now (until I can find something more economical) and since he has to go into town for work, I drop him off and keep the car, which enables me to go to the gym more because I'm already in town.  There are benefits to all this trouble.

I was curious as to what my weigh-in would be this week given the amount last week (which included loss of water weight gain from the week before).  My appetite has been greater this week (because of all the working out or hormones? hmmm...not sure) and so I know that I've eaten more than usual.

So without further ado....

Weigh-in no. 31 (+1.0)

Last week:    279.8
This week:    280.8      
Gain of         +  1.0
Total Loss    - 46.2 lbs

I feel like a bit of an idiot with the return of the 280 to the scale, particularly after all my celebration last week.  But to be honest, I know now it'll go.  Even though I'm up one pound this week, I don't feel stuck.  I know it'll come off.  I know I'll hit the 50 lb loss mark soon.  I know my body can do some amazing things it couldn't do a month ago.  And I'm alright.  Anger isn't present today and I'm thankful for that.


How's your week been?  What challenges are you working on?  
What have you noticed as improvements this past week?


8 comments:

  1. That's so excellent Jayme. I think I have truly come to terms with hating going to the gym.

    As a trade off, though, I am doing the the 30 Day Shred and am absolutely loving it. So, it's 20 minutes a day and I can push myself to do it. A bonus of this DVD is that once I get bored listening to the same instructions over and over I can turn off the narrative and still here the music.

    I officially restarted my focus on April 1st. This Friday I'll see what the results are via the scale and how my jeans fit :)


    Keep it up. I know it's hard to see the difference. I only know when I've lost 5lbs by how my upper abdomen looks. Keep taking those photos as proof!

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  2. A thought about the photos, would the changes be more noticeable to you if you were wearing the same clothes each time? Here you were x months ago wearing these certain pants and they are fitting snug and here you are today in the same pair and you have to hold them so they don't fall off.
    Keep up the good work,
    Jen

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  3. My week was actually decent(!!!) because I was better at tracking. This week I plan to do even better (!!!!) That's huge for me because in the past I never kept up with tracking, but I'm realizing that it's key for me :)

    Honestly, I'm a little shocked that you don't see 50 pounds lost. But I can kinda relate because in my mind I'm thin. I never said I wasn't delusional :)

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  4. Thanks so much for posting this -- I posted recently about not really knowing how big or small I am too. Maybe I should take more photos too -- will give it some thought.

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  5. OMG you described perfectly how I feel. I've lost 70 pounds and to me I look exactly the same as I did before. Thank god for pictures. I see the changes in pictures, but not when I look in the mirror. And the looking in the mirror thing...when I didn't have someone else in the mirror that served as a frame of reference, it was hard for me to truly "see" how big I'd become. I was truly horrified by my pictures.

    I think you look fantastic!! Keep up the good work at the gym. It took me probably 3 or 4 weeks of exercising most days for it to become a habit. Very quickly you'll begin to feel so much better. Continued success to you!

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  6. Just come across your blog, loved this post and really relate. It's only when I see 2 photos side by side that I understand what I have done but also how far I have to go aswell. Clothes help as a reminder but it's always so hard for us to see which is crazy because we try so hard at times it seems impossible.

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  7. Jen & D, you're right about the pictures meaning more if I'm able to do a more comparable comparison, so to speak. So, I've raided my partner's computer for 'before' pictures (since I never kept pictures of myself before I started this process because I always looked bigger in them than I felt) and will work on getting some up side-by-side so I can see the change better.

    Alexia, yeah - you're not the only one that's shocked. But what you said is what I do - I look thinner in the mirror to myself than I really am, so in my head in the mirror, I look like I'm at about a 16-18 or so - instead of a 22....so I gotsta take pictures so I can *really* see myself (good & bad)...

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  8. Photos do definitely tell the true story. I have been taking a picture a month just for me. it's a way to encourage me to keep on going.

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