Dangerous Territory

Four days ago, I blogged with a great deal of excitement about reaching 200.8 pounds, and pledged that I would reach 199 pounds by today. To that end, I doubled my walking time from 30 minutes to one hour, and was especially careful about what I ate.

Now mind you, I am logging everything I do, good or bad, keeping track of my food intake and exercise in a journal so that I can study what I do and when I do it and see if there are any patterns emerging that might help me tackle my weight problem a little more effectively. When I slip off my diet, I say so, both in my journal and on this blog.

Saturday night, I made a conscious decision to eat something I normally don't eat, french fries. I truly don't enjoy them all that much; I prefer my potatoes mashed and slathered with butter. But Saturday was a very busy day and I had no time to prepare a healthy, delicious meal to take to work as I usually do. I had skipped lunch altogether because of time constraints, again, an unusual thing for me to do. By seven p.m., I was starving. I had my most immediate deadlines out of the way, so I asked my supervisor if I could run pick up a sandwich or a salad; there's a healthy market about two miles away from where I work, but he was expecting something new to come over the wire any second, so he asked me to make it quick. There's a burger joint a block away, so a burger it was.

I got the small meal, really not happy about doing it, but so hungry I probably would have cheerfully gnawed on cardboard at that point. I calculated the calories, then wolfed down all the fries, ate half the burger and drank half the soda, the first I'd had since starting the program.

The soda tasted sticky sweet, the burger was grey mystery meat on a gluey, pasty white bun that looked like someone had sat on it. The lettuce was limp, the tomato flavorless and I had just downed 956 calories, even with halving the portions. Bad choice and I knew it.

Eating that disgusting meal was like swallowing a hand grenade. No sooner had I finished than the yucky stuff started expanding like a hot air balloon, churning precipitously around in my stomach. I felt nauseated, not from guilt or shame; I had made a conscious choice based on expediency, not desire. But I was actually nauseated from the food I had eaten.

My body is used to me treating it better. I just have to ask, why doesn't it return the favor?

Yes, I ate a bad meal, but my calorie count for the day was still under 2,000. With all the regular physical activity I now do, a nutritionist I consulted told me it would take 2,300 calories a day to maintain my weight. If I eat 1,800 calories a day, a perfectly reasonable plan, I should lose a pound a week.

Should lose. Should lose.

I eat about 1,800 calories every single day, some days closer to 1,700, and that one day just a little over 2,000. Remember I have doubled my exercise time from what I told the nutritionist I was doing. And yet, on the morning after that one fast food meal, I weighed FIVE POUNDS MORE than I had the previous morning. I was swollen like a bad melon and just a few ounces away from my original starting weight.

That was yesterday, Sunday, and I walked and walked and walked on my treadmill until I was dripping sweat from every pore. I ate a small breakfast, large lunch and no dinner, so by this morning I had it back down to 203.2 pounds, meaning that I gained weight this past week, didn't lose it, and my blood pressure has sky rocketed, too. It also means I can kiss 199 pounds goodbye, at least for several more weeks.

I still simply cannot make myself believe I gained five pounds overnight from just one heavy meal. Did the rest of the week not count at all? Did I really negate all my hard work by going through one drive-up?

Yes, apparently I did.

I ate 20 reasonable meals over the course of last week and 14 healthy snacks. Even on the day I ate the yucky meal, I still stayed within 200 calories of my daily goal. And yet my weight shot up to almost 206 pounds overnight after that one meal. How is that possible? How can two months work of work and sacrifice be wiped out by a single meal?

Yes, I learned a valuable lesson. But my frustration level is almost unmanageable. I am drifting into dangerous territory, the "dammit, if I'm going to weigh 205 pounds or so for the rest of my life, I might as well enjoy it."

Then I have to remind myself...I weighed 206 pounds and was gaining weight, 6 pounds in as many months. So maybe my reality is that I have to keep exercising and watching every bite just to keep from turning into The 700-Pound Blob.

I am a geek girl, a science-based writer who knows quite a bit about health and wellness. So what I know intellectually, is that what I am doing should work. I should be losing weight and getting more fit and healthy. But here's what my utter lack of success is doing to me.

I suspect most of my friends don't believe I am exercising 6 days a week even though I am, and I suspect they think I am a midnight snacker or closet binger, because any time someone has stuck to a well-designed, thoughtful program for two months and produced no measurable results, well, they think the only answer is, I must be cheating or lying, or deluding myself. I can assure you I am not cheating or lying, but I most certainly am deluding myself...because I thought if I stuck to a good diet and exercise program faithfully I would be rewarded with some positive physical changes.

I have seen none. Yes, my resting heart rate is now down to 60, and my blood pressure is usually under better control. But guess what? You don't walk into a cocktail party and get rewarded with admiring glances for lowering your resting heart rate. That hot guy in the corner isn't going to look at me and say, "Hey, that chick has a slammin' resting heart rate."

No, he's going to look at me and say, "Oh, my God! Look at the size of her ass! I better get out of here before she knocks the whole planet out of orbit."

So, I am discouraged today. More than discouraged. I haven't lost an inch in weeks, my weight keeps going up, not down, and I have been at it for two months. I know it's going to take time to see real results, but this much time?

I really just want to quit, but I won't let myself. I have to believe that if I keep going, some halcyon day I will wake up, look at myself in the mirror, and like what I see...not just who I see.

Planet Fat Cat