A Moment for Posterity...and for Posteriors

Okay, I know it's not my regular weigh-in day but I just had to record this moment for posterity. This is Day 54 of my 90 Day Fitness Walking Program. I was discouraged yesterday because I had to climb a long flight of stairs and seven or eight steps in, I was blowing air through my nose like a whale. Is this what fitness feels like? I asked myself, because it didn't feel fit to me to get winded just by climbing stairs. And seeing as how I am more than halfway through the program and have not only been faithful but done more than asked each day, including doing my walks on a 2% incline, I think I should be more able to handle stairs by now.

Then I remembered. I may have been walking for almost two months now, but I've only lost 3 pounds and my body fat percentage and muscle mass have not budged on my fancy-dancy scale. Hauling more than 200 pounds up a long staircase would be hard work for anyone, but especially for an overweight someone born in the Jurassic Age. Still, I was ticked when I got to the top of the stairs and was huffing and puffing and sweating like a pig, even though my dainty little, erm, not-so-dainty big self usually does not sweat no matter what the provocation.

So imagine my surprise and delight to get on the scale this morning and see that not only am I down to 200.8 pounds, a loss of almost 6 pounds since I started this program, but my body fat has actually dropped by point-two percent and my muscle mass increased by point-one percent. Yay! Those are the first positive changes in my body composition I have seen and that is very encouraging to me.

So, you may be asking yourself, why is she being coy about her total percentage of body fat when she's not coy about anything else? It's because, if my readers knew how much fat I was toting around on my carcass, some sensitive or paranoid soul among you might report me to the Department of Defense as a weapon of mass destruction.

Oh, heck. I just remembered. I published my percentage of body fat on this blog already. Okay, so I'm down to 40.2% from 40.4% and up to 28.9% muscle mass (it was 28.8%). I consider these HUGE changes because it is the first time since I started this journey that my schizophrenic scale has noted any changes whatsoever in my body composition. I can weigh six times in a minute and get weights varying by as much as two pounds, but the body composition and muscle mass NEVER CHANGED. And now they have.

In physiological terms, it means simply that I am a bit stronger, even if not long staircase worthy, and that my body is now slightly more efficient at burning calories than it was before.

And as far as I'm concerned, this is the biggest triumph yet! Next stop, 199 pounds. At the rate I'm going, that should only take another three or four months.

Wait. No more negative thoughts. I will weigh 199 by next weigh-in. My foolhardy little self is predicting I will achieve that milestone in just four more days. Never mind that it took me two whole months to lose six measly pounds. I will prevail.

Now I really have to exercise.

Planet Fat Cat

Frustration

Tomorrow is weigh-in day and already I'm dreading it. Until now, I could look at my daily weight loss journal entries and even in the spiraling ups and downs of my weight, still see a gradual pattern of weight loss emerging. But this week, the sprials have all been up and what I see emerging, even though I am only four weeks into this thing and have really only lost three pounds or so...is a dreaded "plateau."

Now a plateau, at least in the world of dieters, is when your body basically says, "F@#$!!@!! you!" I've dropped all the pounds I care to drop. You want to lose any more? Get lipo! Get a lap band! Leave me alone. I prefer the ass just like it is now, got it?"

Yes, I know. It's appalling that my body would speak to me in such a manner. I myself was raised by a true Southern belle who had exquisite manners (Thank you, mama...). But since I am the only one who "raised" my body (grew it all by myself, with a little help from Blue Bell and Coca-Cola) it's not quite as well-mannered as I, or at least, as I pretend to be when people are looking.

Translated into plain English, this means my body has gotten used to the amount of exercise I am doing and the type and amount of food I am eating and in order to lose more, I am going to have to do more and eat less.

I HATE THIS! IT'S NOT FAIR!!!

I must take a few paragraphs to whine. Don't you think giving up guzzling Coca-Cola should count for something? By my estimate I got rid of 897 calories a day just by switching to water (3 12-ounce cans a day x 155 calories = 465 calories + one 32-ounce gut buster from any convenient drive-in a day at 432 calories = 897 empty liquid but simply divine calories a day.) Multiply that times the 28 days I have been on this program and it equals 25,116 calories. Divide that by 3,500, the number of calories you have to either burn or give up to lose one pound, and that equals 7.176 pounds. So, survey says, I should have lost 7.176 pounds from this sacrifice alone by now, but my body is saying, "Oh, hell no!"

That's not even taking into account the ice cream and chocolate I have given up, or the hot, buttery, crunchy cinnamon toast that I make so well but won't let myself make any more because I am trying to become healthy.

That's also not taking into account the fact that over the last month, by sheer dint of will, I have transformed myself from:

• a human sloth who got up and moved away from my computers (yes, there's more than one) only to eat, go to work and attend to the call of nature

into:

• a fantastic human exercise machine

Um, err, well...

into:

• a human sloth who grudgingly gets up on the treadmill every day so I can make an honest check mark in my 90 Day Fitness Walking Program journal.

So with all the calories I've burned walking this past month and all the calories I haven't taken in by giving up many of my favorite indulgences and NOT replacing them with any other indulgence, I think I should have lost 10 pounds or so by now. But once again, my body is saying, "Oh, hell no! We likes it fat! We likes it blubbery!" (I have no idea why my body is talking like Golem, but it's kind of creepy and scary...)

So this week, despite my faithfulness to the program and sticking mostly to my diet (what's one Chocolate Eruption amongst friends?) despite that...it looks like I am going to have a weight gain this week, not a weight loss, and it also looks like I am not losing any additional inches this week.

In the past, my old self would have said, "Screw this! I'm not flogging myself and depriving myself for no reason. If my body wants to stay fat, let it stay fat! I'm not working this hard for nothing. If it's a choice between lounging on my double-wide, snorkeling in Coca-Cola and weighing 204 pounds or busting my hump on the treadmill, counting every calorie and still weighing 204 pounds, then bring on the Coca-Cola! Bring it on!"

But my new self is watching the one number that does keep going down...my blood pressure. And my new self is focusing on the true reason I am on this program, which is to get fit and healthy. And fit and healthy does not always mean skinny. Apparently, at least in my case, it will NEVER mean skinny. But if I keep going as I am, I will be able to wean myself off my blood pressure medication and keep my pressure under control simply through regular cardiovascular exercise and healthy eating. Notice I didn't saying dieting, because I am not on a diet, I am on a journey.

Actually, I am on a mission. And you know what they say, there is no one more fervent than a recent convert. I am a recent convert who doesn't want to become a recent martyr.

And so...I walk.

Fat Cat