Down 16

As of this morning, I am down 16.1 pounds.  

In my hall closet, I have over 100 pounds of beans.  I bought them earlier this year when I learned that my favorite local bean distributor was closing.  I figured I'd stock up, as I'm not sure I'll be able to buy them anymore.

I was talking to The Boyfriend this morning and I asked him to pull several bags of beans out of the pantry, where I have them stored.  When he had handed one ten-pound bag and three two-pound bags, I hefted them in my arms and handed them back.

"That's how much weight I've lost," I told him.

"You are thinning down," he replied.

The scale is showing results -- there's no doubt there.  Yet, when I look in the mirror, I can't see any difference.  I notice a small change in the way my jeans fit, as they are looser in the thigh, but they aren't exactly falling off me.  My current pants are snug enough that I still have a pronounced muffin top.

My walking partner, who I see almost every day, except when it's too cold or raining, told me this morning that she thought I was slimming down as well.

I just can't see it with my own eyes.

I'll be interested to see how long it takes before people I know (who don't know I am dieting) see a difference.

I did get "caught" the other night, though.  When I had to go to a meeting where they were serving hamburgers, I didn't eat anything.  One of my friends from the group texted me after the meeting and asked if anything was wrong.

I was partially truthful.  I told her everything was fine (questionable honesty, since I was hungry and really wanted one of those burgers) and that I was overwhelmed with stuff that's going on at work (100% truth!) as they are adding more and more items to my to-do list.  

She seemed satisfied.

Obsession

I'm starting to obsess on certain things:

• Every time I go to the bathroom (which is a lot, because of all the water I am drinking), I want to step on the scale.  Mostly I've been able to resist, but I can't stop myself from getting on at least once a day.
• My mood soars (or crashes) depending on the numbers I see.  
• I am constantly thinking about food.
• Every time I put on a pair of pants, lie down in bed, or stand in front of the mirror, I'm trying to determine if there is any change at all.

I am losing weight, right?  Right?

I'd Love to be as Fat as I Used to be

Does anyone else have this in their story?

When I was younger, I kept a diary.  One of the reoccurring themes in my journal was how horribly fat I thought I was.

Yeah, fat at all of 130 pounds, soaking wet.

I would love to be as fat as I used to be.

I Don't Like Watching Other People Eat

1. I'm a member of a club.  
2. Tonight, the club meets for hamburgers.
3. Hamburgers are not on my menu at the moment.
4. I should go to the meeting.
5. I don't want to watch other people eating and enjoying their burgers, when all I had was a shake for my supper.
6. I feel completely anti-social at the moment.

Down 15

As of this morning, I'm down 15 pounds from my restart weight.

I look in the mirror, and I don't think I see much difference.  The Boyfriend claims my butt is smaller.  I'm not sure I see it, but I do notice the difference in the way my pants fit.  My jeans seem looser in the thigh, and I don't have to stuff my fat stomach into my jeans and jump up and down to get the zipper up.

Progress?  I guess so.  Not too bad considering I've been doing this for three weeks, and I had one cheat weekend where I went camping with friends and ate food instead of meal replacement shakes.

A few days ago, I got an email offering more diet shakes at a discount, due to an upcoming Memorial Day sale.  I'm trying to decide how much longer I want to stay on the shakes.  Originally, I'd figured 12 weeks.  Then I thought I ought to go for 12, to really kick start things.

Now, at the rate I'm going, I'm thinking perhaps I ought to go longer.  So far, I've lost an average of 5 pounds a week.  If I hang in for 6 months, then I'd be done.

The Boyfriend hates me on the shakes.  He misses eating meals with me.  Quite honestly, I miss it too.  Last night, we were hanging out having a bonfire and he brought two plates of meatballs out -- one for him and the other for our roommate, Guitar Buddy.  The smell drove me crazy, and I mooched two -- one from The Boyfriend and one from Guitar Buddy (who was contemplating tossing one of our dog!) -- and they were good.

Ended up skipping my shake and having a small glass of red wine, instead.  I know I "shouldn't" have, but boy it was good.

Even Rapid Weight Loss Takes Forever

It's dawning on me that even rapid weight loss takes forever when you have a lot of weight to lose.  While I hear lots of stories of people on VLCDs being able to lose 100 pounds in 100 days, I don't think it's going to be a realistic hope for me.  It is hard for me to lose weight.  Even when I stick to the strictest of diets, the weight doesn't seem to want to come off very quickly.

I figure I'll be lucky if I average 3 pounds a week over time.  If I lose at that rate, it will be almost 41 weeks before I'm at goal.  That reaches into late February of next year.

Right now, I'm mostly sticking to shakes.  On the days that I don't, it's because I have social obligations that center around food.  I don't want to tell everyone I'm dieting, because it inevitably results in comments that I don't want to hear:

• You're losing weight too quickly.
• You're not making much progress, are you?  Are you sure you aren't cheating?
• Should you be eating that?
• My cousin lost weight by doing x.  It's much healthier/better/etc. than what you are doing.

Since my restart, I'm down 10.9 pounds in 17 days.  That's an average of just over .6 of a pound per day.  At that rate, it might be possible to finish by the end of this year.

We'll see how it goes, I guess.  All I can do is keep doing what I'm doing.

The Odds Are Against Me

Here's another explanation of why it is so hard to lose weight.  This is from CBS News:

Weight loss can be a battle for everyone. But a large new study says that for obese people, the odds of reaching normal weight are near impossible.

The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, shows the odds of a clinically obese person achieving normal weight without surgical interventions are just 1 in 210 for men and 1 in 124 for women in a given year. Among the most morbidly obese, the chances were even worse.

If you would like to read the study, you can find it here.

1 in 124.  Those are some pretty shitty odds.  I'd like to think this time around I'll be successful, but I have to admit those numbers are daunting.

All I can do is to keep doing as I'm doing.  Today is day 9.  Optimistic me hopes I'll be able to drop close to 100 pounds in 100 days.

Realistic me thinks it will probably be much longer than that.

Levels of Obesity

Back when I started this blog, my first goal was to get myself to be obese.  At the time, I didn't realize there were multiple categories of obesity.

At 241.9 lbs, I am morbidly obese.

Based on new classifications of obesity I have found, I have updated my goals table:

If I reach...	BMI...	I will be...
218 lbs	39.9	severely obese
191 lbs	34.9	obese
163 lbs	29.9	overweight
136 lbs	24.9	normal weight
118 lbs	21.6	at goal
101 lbs	18.5	underweight

This means my next mini-goal is 218, where I will only be severely obese.

It seems like that is an odd goal to celebrate.  On the other hand, it is still better than being morbidly obese, right?

Nine Down

As of this morning, Sunday, I've lost exactly nine pounds.  I started my diet on Monday.

Not too shabby.  Not too shabby at all.  

Of course I realize that next week probably won't be so dramatic.  Usually the first week on a VLCD you lose a ton of weight, which is mostly water.  Still, I'm noticing that my pants aren't quite so snug in the thigh.  And, maybe, it looks like my big fat but is a little bit smaller.

I'm starting to notice some changes in my skin.  With the exception of my arms, which are almost always dry, everything else seems a little softer and maybe a bit oilier.  When I pointed that change out to The Boyfriend, he agreed that he could feel the change, too.

Now, here's a bit of TMI...

My boyfriend and I have a very busy sex life, but we don't often do The Deed.  We do other things, but The Deed (think peg in hole, here) isn't something that happens very often.  On the occasions that we do The Deed, we do it ride 'em cowgirl style, because he's got a bad back, and he likes being able to relax and enjoy his experience.

So we did The Deed this morning.  We hadn't done in in a while because a few months back I injured my shoulder and pushups have been painful.  My shoulder has been better recently, so we thought we'd give it a try.  Since I started the VLCD, I've been more interested in sexy time.

Ride 'em cowgirl was a lot easier and a lot less awkward for me.  It made us both happy, and it started The Boyfriend's day with a smile.

That's always a good thing.

Reducing Chaos

One of the things that I've noticed, as I grow older, is that life tends to be full of unnecessary chaos. Sometimes, one finds themselves in a set of circumstances that add to one's stress level, without there being a good reason.

As part of my most recent decision to lose weight, I've decided to stop doing things that are difficult or damaging to me, especially when they yield little or nothing in return.

This morning, I started the process by which a long-standing acquaintance will probably come to an end.

For years, I've known a woman who often causes a lot of distress in my life, mainly because she has a temper and can be very intense.  Years ago, we were casual friends.  Over a decade ago, through a combination of bad luck and poor decisions on her part, she became homeless.  She bought a decrepit motorhome with the last of her money, put her stuff in storage, and has lived in in ever since.

About five years ago, she asked me to serve as a mail forwarding service.  I agreed, despite having some reservations, because I thought it was the right thing to do.  I wanted to help her, but I wasn't able to do much to help her get back onto her feet.  I couldn't offer her housing (her personality is far too abrasive for me to survive long as her roommate), a job, or money to get her into an apartment.  I thought collecting her mail was the least I could do.

She's tried to improve her life.  She went back to school and eventually got her degree.  She's applied for public housing, tried to get numerous jobs, but hasn't managed to pull herself out of long-term homelessness.  It's been at least a couple of years since she graduated and still, nothing.

Collecting and forwarding her mail has become a thankless, and tiresome job.  My acquaintance has shouted at me numerous times over the phone because she's expected a piece of mail that didn't come on time.  Once she bawled me out over a something her automobile insurance sent her, and another time I got to listen to her shriek over a traffic ticket.  Most recently, she was upset because she received a check, which I forwarded on to her, that she never got.

Whenever she calls and I answer the phone, I'm guaranteed to at least an hour long rant that covers all the things that are going wrong in her life.

I am sorry.  I truly am.  However, I can't continue doing it.

I have a lot of other things going on that I need to worry about, besides getting yelled at over someone else's mail.  I have a demanding job. I'm helping The Boyfriend prepare for a lawsuit.  My mother has cancer.  I need to take things off my plate that cause me unnecessary stress (and cost me money) because there is only so much of me to spread around.

About three or four months ago, I gave her notice that I needed to stop collecting her mail.  She ignored me.  Finally, I gave her a hard deadline.  Instead of accepting my boundary, she asked if The Boyfriend or Guitar Buddy would be willing to do it.  They both said an emphatic no.  I don't blame them.  Her aggressive and abrasive personality has alienated everyone.

Today she's been haranguing me by text, asking for the phone numbers of other mutual friends and acquaintances.  One, who I asked for permission before giving out her number, was very clear.  She didn't want to invite that level of chaos back into her life.

I finally told my homeless acquaintance that it was time to shit or get off the pot.  Either move back to town or get a new address in the city where she's staying.

I've come to realize that an important part of losing weight is self-respect.  You have to respect yourself enough to care, and to enforce the self-discipline it requires.  In so doing, it's also important to draw boundaries around others who don't respect you as well.

I deserve not to have this level of chaos in my life.

The Inhumanity of Student Loans

I know this post is off topic for my blog, but student loans are the reason I didn't post anything yesterday.  The Boyfriend and I both had the day off, and we spent all of it assembling paperwork for a lawsuit involving his student loans.

For those unfamiliar, student loans in the United States are one of those debts that you cannot discharge, even in bankruptcy.  For those unfortunate folks who went to college, and didn't find a decent-paying job after graduation, the loans become an ever-ballooning albatross.

In The Boyfriend's case, he got out of college, and couldn't find work that paid a living wage.  For 90% of his life, despite working multiple jobs, he has not earned more than the Federal Poverty level.  While the Federal Government offers all sorts of so-called "flexible" income-driven payment plans to help people stay out of default, the fundamental problem with all of them is that they do nothing to stop the ever-accruing interest from ballooning the loan balances out of control.

During the 10% of The Boyfriend's life when he earned barely above the poverty level, he still didn't make enough to pay even the interest on his student loan.  His income was so low that even at the highest, he still would have qualified for food stamps and Section 8 federally-subsidized housing, had he applied.

What started out as a modest amount of debt 20 years ago, has now quadrupled in size.  It represents an amount that is nearly ten times his annual salary.

Every year, he receives a notice from his loan servicer demanding he re-certify his income.  Every year, he must prove he is destitute, and it serves as an unpleasant reminder of how worthless his Bachelor's Degree was.  He went to school, studied, and worked hard for nothing.

He graduated from college, applied for work, and nothing came of it.  His job applications to professional positions were unanswered.  The only positions offered him were the same menial jobs he found before he went to school.  So much for the promise that a degree is the golden ticket into the middle class.

He is far worse off than if he had never gone to college at all.

This year, he was reminded that the "standard" loan payment, which would get him out of debt the quickest, amounted to 97% of his monthly gross pay.

How can anyone be expected to repay a debt of that enormity?  As it is, The Boyfriend can't afford to buy a decent used car, or keep the wheezing POS he has on the road.  Completely in debt and discouraged, he filed for bankruptcy.  As part of that proceeding, he filed an additional lawsuit, called an adversarial proceeding, to attempt to discharge his student loans.

While student loans are not normally dischargeable in bankruptcy, there is one exception.  If you can prove something called undue hardship, then you can get out from underneath them.

Anyway, The Boyfriend and I have spent an enormous amount of our free time assembling papers, typing narratives, and putting together documentation to support his case that repaying a debt the size of Texas is unreasonable.  I hope it works.

As for how all of this relates to my diet -- it doesn't.  However, it's time I join the millions of other voices who are screaming about the inhumanity of the current student loan system.  It is inhumane to create a system that dooms people to a lifetime of debt slavery.

The Boyfriend is not the only person I know who has had their life ruined because of student loans.  He is among the millions who haven't married or had children because of student loan debt.  He will likely never buy a house, have any assets for retirement, or hold any of the trappings of a normal, middle class life.

As for Elizabeth Warren's plan to cancel up to $50,000 from everyone's student loan balances?  That's great, but it doesn't do much to help those with extremely high balances.  Bottom line, we need to reform our bankruptcy laws such that student loans, for those who really aren't able to repay, can be discharged.

But even more importantly, we need to reform the system so that people don't end up in this mess to begin with.  It should be our country's priority to have a highly-educated workforce.  Whether someone goes to school to be an artist, a rocket scientist, a doctor, or a teacher, they shouldn't get out of school with an amount of debt they will never be able to repay.

Anyway, 'nuff said on all of that.  Back to dieting...

Mini Flavor Review

As I've mentioned, I decided to go the VLCD route using Dr. Howard's Success Diet.  This is a liquid diet which is similar to the UK version of the Cambridge diet, which has since been renamed The 1:1 Diet.

Here's my review of the flavors so far:

• Chocolate Mint - great
• Chicken Soup - great
• Mocha - great
• Mushroom soup - pretty good
• Cookies and Cream - OK
• Orange - not good, definitely wouldn't buy again
• Vanilla - pretty bad
• Cappuccino - makes me gag when hot, we'll try cold again later
• Banana - terrible!!!!  (one sip and I nearly barfed)

I've also tried some of their protein bars.  Here's what I think of them:

• Chocolate mint - OK, but has a lingering aftertaste I don't like

Ask me in a week or two how I feel about all of the flavors.  I imagine my preferences will change as time goes by.

Six Years Gone By

Yesterday, I decided to resurrect my blog.  It's been about six years since I've regularly posted.

Last night, I went back and re-read the whole thing.  I guess I should re-start by posting some updates:

• The Kid turned 18, dropped out of school, and immediately returned to her biological family.
• My divorce with The Ex was finalized.
• I found a new boyfriend.  We met online in December of 2012, but didn't become an official couple until 2013.  Going forward, he will be referred to as "The Boyfriend" in the blog.
• The Kid, who is unmarried, has since had two kids.  One of them tested positive for drugs at birth and has been taken away by Child Welfare Services.  CWS contacted me about nine months ago and asked me if I wanted to take custody of the child.  I said no*.  
• I was reunited with an old and very dear friend.  He and I lost touch back in 2005.  Coincidentally, I found him just as his long-term girlfriend was kicking him out.  He's been bunking with The Boyfriend and me for about a year.  He's the reason I learned to play guitar.  I'll call him "Guitar Buddy" for now.

Some other things worth noting:

• Getting divorced wasn't so bad.  I discovered, after The Ex and The Kid were gone, that The Ex had an enormous spending problem.  Once our finances were separate, I suddenly had a lot more money.  Remember how I was always complaining we were broke?  A significant portion of that was because of The Ex's financial infidelity.
• I was able to refinance (and keep) the house that The Ex didn't want.
• I was able to pay off the vehicle loan, and credit card debt.
• Despite my profound fears about losing my job, I didn't.  I'm still working for the same company.  While the job is still super-demanding, I've pushed back somewhat, received a raise, and the demands on my time are less unreasonable.
• Dr. Howard's Success Diet is much tastier than the U.S. version of The Cambridge diet.  While some of the flavors aren't to my liking, I'm not finding their worst to be as gag-worthy as Cambridge strawberry.  Of course I'm only beginning Day 3 of sole source.  Ask me in a week what I think of the stuff.

* I said no to taking custody of The Kid's child because I am 53 years old, and I need to spend the next 20 years focusing on planning for my retirement, not raising a grandchild.  We (The Ex and I) struggled enormously with The Kid's social, intellectual, and behavioral challenges that stemmed from her biological mother's use of drugs and alcohol while she was pregnant.  I know I do not have the time, energy or strength for a second round of, especially since I never wanted to raise an infant.

Sometimes, when it comes to troubled adult children, you have to know when to step back and not get involved.  At the end of the day, I care about The Kid, and wish she was making better choices, but I also realize I am powerless to change what she is doing.  I'm not going to throw myself into the fire again.

In this case, the most loving thing I can do for myself, The Kid, and The Kid's Kid, is to allow someone else to take over.  I hope they have the time, money, energy, and desire to do the job right.

Starting Over

I'm starting over.

Again.

It has been a long time since I've posted.  The Ex is gone.  The new boyfriend, who is no longer new, is still here.

I've put on a ton of weight since I was at my lowest.  On Monday, I weighed 250.9.  It's been gradual, just a bit by bit, until I finally realized that I've once again fat and I need to do something about it.  I think it's a combination of menopause and an extremely stressful job that keeps me on call 24/7/365.

Boyfriend says he doesn't mind, but I don't like how I feel.  I'm to the point where I don't feel comfortable in my own skin.  While I've "only" popped up one pant size since my lowest, I feel uncomfortable.  The other day when I was scrubbing the shower floor, I realized how hard it was to reach the floor.

When I go camping, it's hard to move gear around.  While I have been walking for about an hour on mornings, when it's above 40°F and not raining, it's not making much of a difference in my weight.

It's time to fix this.

This time around, I'm trying a new VLCD.  I don't have the patience for Weight Watchers, where I starve for weeks at a time, while everyone around me eats delicious food, only to discover I've lost half a pound.

Fuck that.

So, it's back to three meal replacement shakes a day.  We'll see how it all works out.  I'll let you know.