God was most certainly not a woman.
I came to this decision about the creator long ago, but lately it has been reinforced in my mind primarily because of the following:
I can have excruciating PMT, but easy to control weight.
OR
I can have medical intervention to eliminate the cramps that feel like Jack the Ripper is having fun with my ovaries, but weight that just seems to creep up no matter what I do.
Since blissful lack of PMT is, well, blissful for me – and coincidentally also much nicer for people that have to deal with the Uber Bitch from Hell that I can become – it is the weight increase that I am going to have to face.
Bugger.
I looked in the mirror day and had an “Ugh! Whale!” moment. The girls out there will probably know what I mean. The guys… Meh. You have your own worries to deal with, I know 😉 As an aside, what is it about gym clothes that makes them so unflattering? Isn’t hot, red, and sweaty bad enough?
So it is back to the push-ups, sit-ups, and depressingly healthy food for me. Not that I have exactly been excessively unhealthy the past few months, but clearly I haven’t been healthy enough. Sigh.
Because this blog is all about sharing, I thought I would share with you once again my favourite smoothie mix. And my previous ruminations on fruit.
I’m not looking for huge amounts of weight loss here. Even at my thinest when I was fourteen and hadn’t eaten for three months due to… all kinds of medical issues… I still weighed in at a buxom 10 stone. Right now I’m a bit more than that, but not horrendously so. What I am going for is a general tone and reduction in the “wibbly bits”. At my best (August 2005) I was pretty much a perfect size 14, even a size 12 in some shops (and man did I like those shops 😉 ). Right now I’m a generous 14 with occasional forays into 16 territory. I’d like to get back to being comfortably a size 14 again. One day it might even be nice to actually have a flat(ish) stomach, but let’s not get carried away here!
I tried something like this back at the start of the year, even set up a category for it, but y’all were basically pants at keeping me on the straight and narrow 😛 Let’s try this again, shall we? Once a week – let’s say Monday evening – I post an update. You cheer me on, and we all have fun. If I don’t post an update, you yell at me, and again we all have fun 😀
Deal?
(And no, you can’t have my current weight, because I don’t own any scales – at least, I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t fit on the set we have in the kitchen. I’ll have to remember to check next time I go to the gym).
(And yes I know Colin has a similar thing going on, and good luck to all of them, but I’ve never played too well with others. Gets a bit demoralizing when you slip off the wagon as I am sure I will do many times).
I myself have poly-cystic ovary syndrome and have recently lost a lot of weight. I was a size 26 at my worst – leaving the only shopping option as Evans. Now I am a 14 / large 12 (in some shops – which yes I do love). The main way I lost weight was through my husband’s diet which is wheat, dairy and gluten free. I ended up also having chinese medicine. I still feel I could loose more – but once you’ve lost that much you sort of accept more the ‘lumps and bumps’.
You are on the right track to just eat more healthy and up the exercise. I found martial arts was good – great for PMT by the way as nothing beats kicking a bag when you are ‘being a woman’. Good luck on the weight loss and if you want some healthy alternatives I can give you some recipes at some point if you want it.
Ok, so this is just my opinion, but since you’re asking for input, here’s mine. I think that your ideas for healthiness are splendid, but this is my request. Please, please give up the weighing issue!!!! Scales mean NOTHING in the quest for fitness. Why? Because muscle weighs more than fat! If you are wokring out at all, and building muscle at all, then you are bound to be discouraged when the scale doesn’t move. A pound of muscle is much smaller than a pound of fat but it looks the same on the dreaded scales. Plus, if you burn up muscle by mistake, it can look like you’re losing weight, when in fact you’re just storing body fat and remaining the same size, albeit a bit flabbier. I discovered all of this the hard way. If you insist on measuring yourself in some way, and just judging by the way your clothing fits (my personal way of measuring) is not enough for you, then buy a pair of fat calipers and keep track of your body fat percentage. But I really think just going for the size fourteen and ignoring the scale stones is the way to be.
Trust me on this one. I weighed a tiny little number at one time, but it was from unhealthiness, and I was all skin and flab. I wore a much bigger number then than I do now, when my body is muscular and heavier because of the muscle. Now I’m a small number, clothing-wise and I weigh about as much as I did two years ago when I was two sizes bigger.
Well, you probably know all this stuff, and if so, I’m sorry for being so bossy, but I didn’t know it and I wish someone had told me to throw away my scale years ago. I think of all the time I wasted on that damn thing….
Karma/Tam (which one works for you?) – I’m fortunate in that PCO has been ruled out in my case. Not so fortunate in that the last doctor I had just said “who knows what’s causing it – you’re female, it’s natural, it can’t really be that bad, just deal with it”. Needless to say I didn’t go back to that doctor. The current one still doesn’t have a clue but is at least trying things that seem to be working. I don’t think I could go totally wheat, dairy, and gluten free (I like milk in my tea, toast, and pasta too much!) but I’m always looking for new recipes so please share 🙂
Meowkaat – hello again 🙂
Breathe and relax! I’m not going for the whole weighing route – that is one reason I decided not to join the group of dieting bloggers mentioned in the post. I don’t even own a pair of scales. Like you I’m going for the measuring-by-clothes route. There’s this one pair of tailored trousers that by August last year I could pull off without undoing them (and therein lies a whole HOST of embarrassing anecdotes). Now they fit and are, if anything, a little bit tight. They, and a few other choice items of clothing will be my bench mark.
Which is going to make it rather hard to post progress on the blog because there is no way on gods green earth I am going to be posting actual dimensions in cm! Perhaps I’ll see about getting some before/after shots but that would entail getting over my loathing of the camera… You’re probably just gonna have to trust me when I do the updates.
Anyway, it’s nice that you’re being bossy. Shows you care 😀
I’m not 100% free but my husband is on the diet front. I find I am seriously bad at tolerating a lot of wheat, diary or gluten though now I’ve reduced it. And either name works for me 🙂
I went to the gym last night like a good girl and, somehow, I’ve managed to sprain my toe.
Only I could manage to sprain my toe whilst on X-Trainer, treadmill, then cycle.
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