Sunday, July 19, 2009

Resuming weight loss

Because of the work stress and being so busy, I have let my weight loss and health efforts slide pretty much completely during the last two months. I have been eating whatever I felt like, and abandoned my thrice-daily exercise regimen. That said, I have also been getting a lot of exercise, between the dog and the physical nature of some of my work. And though I've indulged in sweets and fast food, I still habitually don't eat that badly; I'm still constrained by the surgery, both in terms of the size of my stomach and what things I can't eat much of before I start to feel ill or have digestive or excretory unpleasantness side effects.

I stopped weighing myself regularly about the same time, but I have done spot-checks and I was always within a few pounds of where I was last, so I was at least maintaining. Today I weighed myself and came in a few pounds down, so I guess despite my neglect I have lost a bit.

Tomorrow I'll begin to ease back into my exercise regimen, or at least, what my exercise regimen will look like adjusted for the dog. Actually most of the exercise during my week off will be riding with Socks one or two times a day, but I'll also try to start working in the core strength training -- which should be interesting as I bet Socks will find it puzzling and seek to get involved. I'll have to start slow as I'm out of practice.

I'll also be working on gradually being less naughty about what I eat. Thanks to the surgery, what I eat isn't as make-or-break a factor as it is for other people. But I still need to focus more on healthy things and less on junk food than I have been. (As always, the hardest part for me is, if we have junk food in the house, I hate to see it go to waste. Next shopping trip I'll try to reduce how much junk food we buy.)

Back when we got the surgery, the average weight loss estimates said I'd probably end up in the 250 range, but that was predicated on the idea that I could take whatever I weighed on the day of surgery and subtract from that, ignoring that I had already lost about 70 pounds just to get there. But I think that was fallacious thinking. Those 70 pounds also count, even if I didn't lose them because of the surgery, because they were part of the "easier" weight loss that the surgery would have made me lose. Right now, my guess is I can get under 300, but if I don't get much below 300, I won't be disappointed. It's already great to have so much more energy and to be able to buy clothes locally (with ten times the selection I used to have available, at half the cost) and to be able to fit places I couldn't for years. And, most importantly, not to be diabetic. I don't need any specific, arbitrary number to be content.

No comments: