Long Bones

‘Allo. It’s Sunday and I really need to get out of bed and get ready for Church (I’m Unitarian Universalist) especially as Flickerbrain is coming with me today. It’s a special service to thank people who have been members for one year and I’ve been a member for one year. I got a letter in the mail asking me to come to this service and “bring your family.” I lack family in Fairbanks. Okay, I have a second cousin here, but I don’t know her very well. So I turned to my best friends, Shondar and Flickerbrain. Unfortunately, Shondar’s boyfriend had an emergency last night, but Flickerbrain agreed to come with me. So I really must get up! In the meantime, the entire reason I jumped on to blog is that I read this article this morning and I agree completely.

This is me one month ago:

This was me two years ago:

And this:

There aren’t a lot of pictures of me at my heaviest. But that should give you an idea of the difference between 280 and 200 lbs.

SW: 280
LW: 196
CW: 192
TL: 88.0 lbs

Somehow I lost 4 lbs this week. Actually the more I think about it I think that last weeks .8 gain was illusory – a product of water retention or hormones or something like that. That is why you can’t really pay too much attention to one day’s weigh-in. No way in heck I lost 4 pounds this week for real. I did very little exercise this week: I walked into work and back a few times but then it got too cold (which for me is around -25).

I’m pretty lucky in that the cold spell has broken right about the same time my car did. Okay well, that is really stretching the definition of the word lucky. My car did die. Well, it’s not turning on at least. Not to mention my work computer. That had my dad’s last email to me before he died on it.

So not a good day.

I’m not sure how well I’ll be blogging this week. I’ll have tips and tricks tomorrow because of the holiday. Of course I’ve got to think of some good tips and…oh heck. I just thought of one. So tomorrow I’ll chat about what I say one should do on Thanksgiving.

Remember, I am not an expert. I am just a girl who’s lost 88 lbs. I do what I do, it may not work for you. You’ll understand this redisclaimer tomorrow.

I do know how ridiculous it is to be mad at someone for agreeing with me. So I’m taking back all the boy griping. Everything else still stands though.

Ran into these guys this morning on my way to work. They were still there on my way back.

It’s getting to be a little on the cold side for me to walk to work. Right on the edge – my favorite temperature is -18 apparently. It’s just cold enough that you feel impressive wandering around out in the icy cold but not so cold that it gets painful by the end of the walk. At -22 on my way home my hands did get painfully cold. If I’m going to keep on walking then I am going to need to dig up some better gloves I think are in my closet somewhere. My current gloves are inferior.

At this moment I am very tired, both physically and emotionally exhausted. As I mentioned yesterday it’s been a bumpy couple of weeks. I’m in the process of getting back on my game, emotionally speaking. But until I do I’m not comfortable guiding anyone anywhere.

But part of getting out of this dark place for me is a thought I had last night:

I consider myself a writer, and as such it is my job to go through these rough times, to feel every nuance of grief for the baby, anger and disappointment for the guy, worry for the house, fear of the bills, and a heck of a lot of frustration with myself. I can and probably should wallow in these emotions for a bit, but not very far past today, and then start to tease through them, follow the leads of emotion to their roots and discover what I can learn about myself through these issues.

I’m not good at everything. I’m bad at men, bad at money, bad at expressing myself other than on paper or the white glare of the computer screen. I use my issues as an excuse to not deal with my problems. When I get depressed I play mindless games constantly and then can’t sleep for the tetris bricks falling in my head. I don’t get cold easily but when I do I stay cold. I don’t get thrown easily but when I do I stay thrown.

I am a good friend, a good family member. I am a good writer and  a “good” Unitarian Universalist, if there is such a thing. I have a strong inquisitive faith and clear politics but I’m always willing to listen to the other side.

Some things make me very angry. Most of these things I can’t fight and many of them I participate in. Such as judging people by their appearances.

I will not vote, on anything, without considering both sides first.

I did something good today. It’s personal, between myself and two other people, and I’m not going to go into it here for their sakes. But it is something that I can be proud of myself for. And I can feel the slightest lifting at the edges of this funk, the barest glimmering of light along the perimeter of this dark space. This is going to be one hell of a hard winter and I’m going to have to finally learn money and how to save it.

It’s a control thing with me. I’ve done it with food – at this point I’m confident I’m going to lose the rest of the weight, its only a matter of time. I can’t fall off the bus if there is no bus. I just eat carefully now, and less. That isn’t going to stop. So now I need to apply the lessons I’ve learned here to my cash flow. Spend carefully now, and less. And men. Give emotions carefully now, and less. And grief. Mourn carefully now. But not less.

This is me and my Blue cat after the boiler had been fixed but before it got warm.

I haven’t been around much lately. At all. In fact, haven’t even looked in at the blog in almost a week.

There was a tragedy in my life – I found out on Tuesday. I’m still trying to figure out how to cope – the horrible things that happen on the news to strangers are now horrible things that happen to people I care about. I’m thinking about going back to grief councelling. I don’t know, I don’t want to miss the work…

And then I got rejected by the cool guy who I was hanging out with a couple weeks ago. He apparently mistook something I said and thought I wanted a relationship or something. I don’t. Never did. So being rejected by him should really not matter at all. But somehow it does.

And my boiler went out this weekend – the very first cold weekend here in the banks. And because it was a weekend, even though I called the tech at 1:00 in the afternoon its still considered after hours. Far too much money later he discovered that I need a major fix beyond the major fix I already knew I needed.

So……..

…

When all things suck, what do you do other than endure?

SW: 280
LW: 195.2
CW: 196
TL: 84.0 lbs

Yeah so a +.8 gain. Not bad considering. I’ll tell you considering what in a separate post.

So a large part of losing weight is exercise. And it isn’t just helpful for losing weight, it is apparently imperative for looking good once you’ve lost weight. But not everybody enjoys exercise. And by not everybody, I mean me. Seriously. I have never gotten one of those exercise highs people talk about no matter how hard I’ve pushed myself. I just don’t get them I guess. My main source of exercise these days is walking to work and back, but it’s getting cold and dark and sometimes I’m running late (like yesterday) and sometimes I need my car to run work errands, and sometimes I need to bring more than I can carry to work (like today).

But all is not lost! Even if it’s 40 below for two weeks like last winter there will still be exercise! Yes, I have a gym membership and I do hit the gym, but even if I didn’t there are plenty of non-gym things that count as exercise:

Housework. I put hand weights in the bottom of my laundry basket and my washer and dryer are downstairs.
Shopping. Just don’t spring for fast food while you’re out refreshing your wardrobe because all your clothes are too big.
Dancing. Rocks.
Shovelling snow. Doesn’t rock, but is necessary.
Playing with kids/animals/friends who act like kids. Also known as wrastling. The ‘A’ is intentional.

If you have fun with it the more likely you are to do it.