As Time Goes By

 Here it is, more than two years since I last posted.  Much has happened:

• My weight still sucks.  I've been up and down, and I'm back on a diet again.  This time, I'm doing OMAD (One Meal a Day) with delivered recipes and ingredients from a food delivery service making up at least 50% of my meals.  I'm trying to choose the healthier, low calorie selections.
• My current weight is 231.3 lbs.  My BMI is 42.3; I am still morbidly obese.
• My roommate, who I previously called Guitar Buddy, moved out at the end of July.  
• I am still with The Boyfriend.  This December, we will have known each other for nine years.
• COVID put The Boyfriend out of work, and he hasn't worked in well over a year and a half.  My job is completely insane, as it always has been, so we are managing fine.  Since I've been working a lot, The Boyfriend has completely taken over the housework and most of the cooking.  
• My mother (with whom I have a very troubled relationship) was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer in 2018.  She was briefly treated with immunotherapy and radiation, which has held the cancer at bay for about 3.5 years.  At her most recent PET scan, they detected new (suspected cancerous) activity in her liver and colon.
• My sister (from whom I have been estranged since 1998) is coming to town next month.  My mother, as one of her dying wishes, wants me to come up and visit.  She has also asked that I leave The Boyfriend at home.  I see this visit as potentially fraught with peril.  I've blogged about my not-so-loving family before.

Maybe I'll start blogging again.  Maybe I won't.  There's a lot of fodder, for sure.

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.