Weighty Matters

The Weekly Weigh-In was neither good nor bad. I weigh exactly the same today, 203.8 pounds, as I did a week ago, and the only place I lost any inches was in my chest...naturally. By the time this is over, I will look like a Hersey kiss, big and broad on the bottom and a mere slip of a girl up top.

But...and this is far more concerning, for some reason my blood pressure and resting heart rate were up this week...not good.

So I have come to a few conclusions about my walking program. You know the definition of insanity, don't you? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Well, now that I have been doing the same thing over and over again for the past six weeks...walking, restricting my diet, not drinking any soda, and I'm still getting the same result, which is to say, almost no measurable result at all, then I have to conclude I am insane if I still keep doing only the same things.

Another thought that keeps recurring...as a society we like to make fun of fat people; the fatter they are, the more cruel the jokes. When fat people say they have been trying to lose weight, exercising and restricting calories, we all howl. Oh sure!!! we think. What'd you do? Eat only 499 French Fries instead of 500? Is that your idea of a restriction?

Since I have but 53 pounds to lose, which makes me relatively "skinny" in the world of fat people, I have been as guilty as any of you about turning my nose up at the morbidly obese. I didn't believe it when my super fat friends told me they had been exercising and dieting and couldn't lose weight. But I believe it now, because that is what is happening to me.

For the past six weeks, I have been faithfully following my walking program. I went from being totally sedentary to walking at a brisk pace for 20 to 30 minutes a day. By the time I finish the program six weeks from now, I will be walking 30 minutes a day, six days a week. And yet, adding that regular aerobic exercise to my daily regimen has accomplished very little. Yes, my blood pressure came down some, but it didn't stay down. My resting pulse came down, but also went back up. Those were the only two victories I could cling to to keep myself motivated to keep walking, and now even those are suspect.

I've lost about one inch from my hips and a half inch from my waist, but three inches from my chest. Why is that? It's not like my boobs are walking on the treadmill. My legs are, but they stubbornly remain the same hefty size, while my delicate chest is melting away like butter on a hot skillet. That's not exactly encouraging.

I have lost less than three pounds in six weeks of hard work, and if I so much as walk by a bakery I gain a pound. Not much to applaud there either.

I have totally given up my beloved Coca-Cola, ice cream, cookies, cake and a few dozen other little snacks I enjoyed on occasion. I am eating a healthy, balanced diet of organic fruits, vegetables and meats. I am eating measured portions; one of the biggest surprises to me when I started was the discovery that what I thought was a normal portion was actually twice the size of what I should have been eating. So now I measure or weigh everything that goes into my mouth. I have thought and thought about what I what more I can do, what I might be doing wrong...but the bottom line is, my bottom line has not changed. I am still fat. I am still out of shape. I cannot see much progress. And I am very discouraged.

In my bad moments, I say, "What the hell?" If any normal person had their choice of eating whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, guzzling Coca-Cola, never exercising and weighing 206 pounds, or denying themselves most of their favorite foods, measuring and weighing every bite they took, keeping careful records, and exercising 30 minutes 6 days a week to weigh in at 204 pounds after six weeks, which one would they chose?

It is very hard not to give in to these dark thoughts and go back to my old 206 pound ways. I mean really, what's the measurable difference? Apparently little to none.

Simple science says the changes I have made and the new exercise and diet regimen I am sticking to so faithfully should have made some significant difference by now, but they haven't. Friends try to comfort me by saying I am exchanging fat mass for muscle mass and muscle weighs more, blah, blah, blah. But my fancy scale says the only way my body mass has changed since I started exercising is for the worse. When I started the scale says I was 40.4 percent fat, a figure that boggles the mind. Now, after six weeks of hard work, the scale says I am 40.6 percent body fat. So much for the changing fat for muscle theory.

I can only conclude that walking is not enough. So I have decided to add something new to my exercise regimen. Instead of just walking for a half hour, I will walk and then do something else, maybe weight training, maybe stretching, maybe some yoga or pilates, but something to extend my exercise regimen to one hour a day.

If that doesn't work, I just don' t know what I'll do next.

Bleh.

A very discouraged

Planet Fat Cat