Weight Loss Limbo

Right now I feel like I’m stuck in limbo. I feel good, I know I’m doing good, it feels as though I’ve been at this for a bit with no major mishaps (at least a month now) but I’m not seeing much in the way of external change yet.

When a normal weight person drops twelve pounds, you see it right away. When a 200+ person drops twelve, it’s kind of like throwing a bucket of water into the ocean – who can tell?

And yet I’m desperate for positive feedback because this is not an easy thing I’m doing, so I keep telling people ‘hey – I lost twelve pounds’ and they’re very encouraging, but it’s still not the same as that wonderful, unsolicited question…

“Hey… did you loose weight?”

That hasn’t happened yet, and my clothes still feel about the same. Although I did buy three pairs of pants two weekends ago that all seem too large – I have a sneaking suspicion that I just bought them too large, I tend to do that.

I’ve also been considering hunger a lot, and I realized that all my life I’ve feared it. Not fear of starvation, that’s a whole different ball game – but a fear of the discomfort of having to live with mild, annoying hunger pangs as I do about 75% of the time when I’m losing weight. Avoidance of that has been a huge barrier between me and losing weight all of these years. What if after the meal is done – I’m still hungry? By thinking that I’ve been planning, in advance, to overeat – for most of my life. By doing that I have not been enjoying my meals because I’m too busy worrying about what I will eat next. It’s not that my ‘fullness meter’ doesn’t work, it’s that my mental meter is way, way off balance.

One of the mind readjustments I’ve had to make is learning that it’s really not a big deal to feel hungry. I can enjoy a movie while feeling hungry, I can play a board game while feeling hungry, I can check my email while feeling hungry, I can get through a work day with it there hanging out in the background waving its little flag at me (or drooling on my shoulder so to speak). I can go to bed hungry.

I used to joke that when I get hungry, I get sad. It was a joke but well… not really. I have all my life tended to experience minor feelings of sadness when hunger is hanging out too long, but with an attitude adjustment I’m learning to get past it. I have to see it as the positive thing it is… a reminder to eat which, when ignored, means that my ample reserves are going into action. It’s nothing to be afraid of.

Anyway, hello to all from weight loss limbo. My mother’s bathroom scale pronounced me at 263 last night – which would actually put me fourteen down in the first quarter. Not too shabby, but we’ll see what the physician’s type scale at the gym has to say at my regular weigh in this Friday.

Ted tells me I look slimmer quite regularly; although to be honest if I had actually lost weight as often as he thinks I have I’d be in negative digits by now. The eyes of his love are not only blind, but I think backwards as well. Still, it’s good to hear. It’s good to have his loving, supportive encouragement on this long road. More than once he’s skipped a treat he wanted simply because he didn’t want to eat it in front of me, or grabbed me and pulled me out of the kitchen or away from a bad choice – and I couldn’t be more grateful for him right now.