To start, I was happy to weigh-in this morning at 182.5, which is down 1 pound from last Sunday.
I know that it is almost certainly water weight fluctuation and so on and so forth, but I'll take it. My challenge is to get down at least another pound (if not more) by next Sunday.
I've restarted the One Hundred Pushups program this week, and today was day 2 of week 1. Already I saw that the pushups were much easier to do on day 2 than they were on the first day (which was actually on Wednesday - I procrastinated). I noticed that by Friday, my arms and abs were very pleasantly sore, which is a good reminder to myself to keep an eye on what I eat.
And perhaps most significantly today, I hula-hooped for 30 minutes straight. I found a few different figures for the amount of calories burned in 30 min, but the average seems to be 350-400 calories for 30 min with a weighted hoop. My hoop is 5 pounds, and of course I am a heavier person moving myself around, so that figure may be slightly more or less, but it's a great thing to have done either way.
The irony was not lost on me that as I was hooping, I was watching an episode of Chopped on my computer. I love cooking shows, and ordinarily when I'm watching them, I knit or draw or do some sedentary thing. I was happy, this time, to have spent the first 12 min doing my pushups, then the next 30 hula-hooping. I feel like that was time well spent.
I've made plans to go ice skating again this coming weekend, actually with the friend to whom I've been enviously comparing myself. I figured it would be good karma to stop being jealous of her weight loss and instead to start doing healthy activities together. She is not my enemy - my own unhealthy lifestyle is - and allying myself with someone going through the same process as me can only benefit us both. Plus, she's just as excited about ice skating as I am, so it should be a great time!
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Walking and skating
I've started keeping a spreadsheet of my pedometer data and adding up the totals week by week. As a reminder, my pedometer generates the following information, approximated from my height and weight:
When entering this data, I keep mental asterisks, such as the other day, when I wore my pedometer at a weird angle on my hip and it recorded what I know to be a 2-mile walk as less than a mile. I also know that it doesn't give me a caloric boost when I take the stairs instead of the elevator, or when the steps I'm walking are uphill (in the snow!).
But to get a general idea of where I stand, it's a good gauge.
Week One
Total Walked: 64,548 steps
Moderate Pace: 31,795 steps
Moderate Time: 272 min (4.5 hours)
kcal Burned: 2432
Distance: 25.59 miles
Week Two (so far)
Total Walked: 54,972 steps
Moderate Pace: 22,464 steps
Moderate Time: 189 min (3 hours, 9 min)
Calories Burned: 2027 kcal
Distance: 21.41 miles
My Week Two totals lack Sunday's data, but to be honest, I doubt they will be too impressive, as I have a ton of schoolwork to do.
Week Two also deserves an asterisk for real, as I went ice skating on Friday. I wore my pedometer out of habit, so some of my calories and steps are based on that data, but I was actually skating for about 2 hours. I read online that for a 180-pound person, ice skating burns 572 calories/hour, which would have meant I burned 1144 calories Friday night. If I add that to my total for the week, I'm a lot closer to the 3500 I would have needed to burn a pound of fat this week, though still distressingly far away.
More importantly though, ice skating was great fun, and it felt terrific to use my body to do something I love. I was incredibly pleased to find my form had held up after so many years of not skating, and that my legs were strong enough to skate at a pretty decent pace, but stay in control as I dodged less experienced skaters and show-offs who were weaving and buzzing through the crowd. The outdoor rink stays open through the end of this month, so I'll have to get there again soon.
Now How About Calories?
Depending on the source, I've read that an overweight adult should exercise anywhere from 150-300 minutes (2.5-5 hours) per week to lose weight. I don't actually know if the "moderate" pace on my pedometer counts as moderate exercise, or if that 150-300 minutes should be like, running on a treadmill. Usually when I'm looking at my pedometer data, I'm focusing on the time spent at a moderate pace and the caloric estimate, since those are the likeliest indicators of weight loss efficacy.
Where it gets slightly complicated for me is that looking at the time, I should be set, as last week I was at a moderate pace for 4.5 hours and this week it was minimally 3. Calorically, though, the amount I'm exercising seems nowhere near the amount I'd need to burn a pound of fat, without even considering the way I'm eating (i.e. all this exercise must be off-setting calories taken in if I'm to lose weight).
Speaking of Weight
A second page of my spreadsheet has a list of my daily weigh-ins, which I take each morning as I'm getting ready (time permitting). I don't know if it's healthy to weigh oneself every day or not, but it's become a habit over the past few years. I'm aware that the daily fluctuations are most likely to do with water weight and digestive speed more than actual measurable weight losses and gains, but I would like very much to see an overall loss each week.
This week, it's been:
Mon: 182.5
Tues: 183
Wed: 182
Thurs: 184.5
Fri: 182.5
Sat: 182
Last Sunday, I weighed 183.5. I'll have to check in the morning to see if there was a net loss, but as I see between Wednesday and Thursday, it's totally possible for my weight to fluctuate by 2.5 pounds and mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.
I have to remember that my goal is not just to lose weight. I want to be fitter, more active, and to eat better because it's healthier and will let me live a longer, happier life. It's not the fat that is making me unhealthy - it's the poor nutrition, lack of exercise, and other unhealthy behaviors themselves that are destructive. Being overweight is merely a symptom of an unhealthy lifestyle, and I can't treat just that symptom, but rather must address the whole lifestyle if I want to overcome it.
I'm really happy that I went ice skating this week. I'll be happier if I can fit it in again, along with some other exercise this coming week. I persist in the belief that if I make my lifestyle healthier, I will eventually see results toward my weight loss goals too.
- total steps walked
- number of steps at a moderate pace
- minutes spent walking at a moderate pace
- kcal burned by walking
- distance travelled (in miles)
When entering this data, I keep mental asterisks, such as the other day, when I wore my pedometer at a weird angle on my hip and it recorded what I know to be a 2-mile walk as less than a mile. I also know that it doesn't give me a caloric boost when I take the stairs instead of the elevator, or when the steps I'm walking are uphill (in the snow!).
But to get a general idea of where I stand, it's a good gauge.
Week One
Total Walked: 64,548 steps
Moderate Pace: 31,795 steps
Moderate Time: 272 min (4.5 hours)
kcal Burned: 2432
Distance: 25.59 miles
Week Two (so far)
Total Walked: 54,972 steps
Moderate Pace: 22,464 steps
Moderate Time: 189 min (3 hours, 9 min)
Calories Burned: 2027 kcal
Distance: 21.41 miles
My Week Two totals lack Sunday's data, but to be honest, I doubt they will be too impressive, as I have a ton of schoolwork to do.
Week Two also deserves an asterisk for real, as I went ice skating on Friday. I wore my pedometer out of habit, so some of my calories and steps are based on that data, but I was actually skating for about 2 hours. I read online that for a 180-pound person, ice skating burns 572 calories/hour, which would have meant I burned 1144 calories Friday night. If I add that to my total for the week, I'm a lot closer to the 3500 I would have needed to burn a pound of fat this week, though still distressingly far away.
More importantly though, ice skating was great fun, and it felt terrific to use my body to do something I love. I was incredibly pleased to find my form had held up after so many years of not skating, and that my legs were strong enough to skate at a pretty decent pace, but stay in control as I dodged less experienced skaters and show-offs who were weaving and buzzing through the crowd. The outdoor rink stays open through the end of this month, so I'll have to get there again soon.
Now How About Calories?
Depending on the source, I've read that an overweight adult should exercise anywhere from 150-300 minutes (2.5-5 hours) per week to lose weight. I don't actually know if the "moderate" pace on my pedometer counts as moderate exercise, or if that 150-300 minutes should be like, running on a treadmill. Usually when I'm looking at my pedometer data, I'm focusing on the time spent at a moderate pace and the caloric estimate, since those are the likeliest indicators of weight loss efficacy.
Where it gets slightly complicated for me is that looking at the time, I should be set, as last week I was at a moderate pace for 4.5 hours and this week it was minimally 3. Calorically, though, the amount I'm exercising seems nowhere near the amount I'd need to burn a pound of fat, without even considering the way I'm eating (i.e. all this exercise must be off-setting calories taken in if I'm to lose weight).
Speaking of Weight
A second page of my spreadsheet has a list of my daily weigh-ins, which I take each morning as I'm getting ready (time permitting). I don't know if it's healthy to weigh oneself every day or not, but it's become a habit over the past few years. I'm aware that the daily fluctuations are most likely to do with water weight and digestive speed more than actual measurable weight losses and gains, but I would like very much to see an overall loss each week.
This week, it's been:
Mon: 182.5
Tues: 183
Wed: 182
Thurs: 184.5
Fri: 182.5
Sat: 182
Last Sunday, I weighed 183.5. I'll have to check in the morning to see if there was a net loss, but as I see between Wednesday and Thursday, it's totally possible for my weight to fluctuate by 2.5 pounds and mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.
I have to remember that my goal is not just to lose weight. I want to be fitter, more active, and to eat better because it's healthier and will let me live a longer, happier life. It's not the fat that is making me unhealthy - it's the poor nutrition, lack of exercise, and other unhealthy behaviors themselves that are destructive. Being overweight is merely a symptom of an unhealthy lifestyle, and I can't treat just that symptom, but rather must address the whole lifestyle if I want to overcome it.
I'm really happy that I went ice skating this week. I'll be happier if I can fit it in again, along with some other exercise this coming week. I persist in the belief that if I make my lifestyle healthier, I will eventually see results toward my weight loss goals too.
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
It seems unfair
Since finally getting over the back-to-back cold, bronchitis, flu triple whammy of my winter break, I've returned to my daily commute to school. I had estimated the walking portions as being about 2-3 miles, though I'm not sure what the basis for this estimate was. It turns out my walk is actually more like 4 miles, which I recently confirmed both by wearing my pedometer last week (I finally changed its battery) and checking the walking distance on Google Maps in case I was wearing the pedometer in the wrong place or making some kind of error.
This means that on an average day (of which I have at least four per week this semester), I walk 4 or more miles, usually about an hour of which is at what the pedometer considers a moderate pace. That translates to roughly 400 calories burned (and possibly more, since I am carrying a heavy backpack, negotiating hills and stairs, and so forth). On other days, I've walked 8 and a half miles or more. One would think the weight would come ripping off.
And yet, I must be doing something terribly wrong with my diet if my weight won't budge.
Some Math
To lose one pound of fat, a person must net a loss of 3500 calories. That is, the amount of calories eaten less one's basal metabolic rate and those burned through exercise must together tally up to 500 less per day if one wishes to lose one pound in a week.
For my height, weight, age, and sex, my basal metabolic rate (BMR) is approximately 1611 calories. (You can calculate yours here.)
If I am burning 400 calories a day, yet staying the same weight, I must be eating minimally 400 calories more than that 1611, which puts me at 2000 calories a day or more.
When I did that math, I blinked, dumbfounded. Can that possibly be right??
Examining Thoughtless Days
Since cutting out all take-out and fast food, I would say I eat a fairly healthy diet. I've been resisting actively dieting because I have too much on my metaphorical plate already, and I assumed that getting the grossly unhealthy foods off the table would take care of the situation.
Yesterday, here is what I ate, with approximate times of day:
- 10:00 am: 1 SlimFast meal replacement bar
- 1:15 pm: a second SlimFast bar
- 5:00 pm: a ham and cheese sandwich, on multigrain bread
- 9:00 pm: 2 mint Oreos
- 11:00 pm: half a bag of frozen cauliflower, with a pat of SmartBalance butter spread, salt, and pepper
- 12:30 am: a small handful of raisins
- 1:30 am: instant Ramen, beef flavor
I wouldn't have said that was such a bad day, in so far as I didn't eat a formal "dinner," but I thoughtlessly snacked on the equivalent of a dinner and then some. I've been eating those SlimFast bars because they fit in my purse and I have ten minutes between my morning and afternoon classes, but then when I came home I was so hungry I had a sandwich. That would be fine if that were my dinner, but I had a second dinner through grazing.
Here was Monday, a less typical day when my mom came to the city:
- 9:00 am: SlimFast bar
- 3:00 pm: street vendor hot dog with sauerkraut and mustard
- 7:00 pm: fried rice chip things with peanut sauce, 1.5 curry puffs, large serving of green curry with beef over jasmine rice, big slice of chocolate mousse cake
- 11:00 pm: 2 mint Oreos
Again, I would have said that while I had a huge meal with my mom at dinner, the rest of the day wasn't so bad. Yet the hot dog was a much bigger meal than it seemed, calorie-wise, and I had the same calories in the SlimFast bar as in two Oreos (why do I even have Oreos in my apartment?!).
In my delusional thinking, I've been "pretty good" this week, but clearly I have slipped up a number of times and probably do so every day.
I read suggestions for how to cut calories from one's diet, and they're always absurdities like "Instead of having an egg McMuffin with cheese for breakfast, have a bran muffin!" or "Trade your 600-calorie Starbucks drink for a 200-calorie hot chocolate!" It's always struck me as a little ridiculous, since I am already eating the bran muffins and having neither lattes nor hot chocolate, but calorie-free diet soda instead. I already eat fat-free dressings and a minimum of condiments and sauces, I use SmartBalance cholesterol-reducing spread instead of butter, I eat whole grains, and I've even started drinking water (ugh). More than a few times, I've lamented, "What am I supposed to cut? Real food??"
Well yes, that is precisely what I have to do. I act like I am eating a basically healthy diet, but I sneak treats in. Dessert at dinner, packages of Oreos hanging around the apartment, appetizers instead of salads at dinner, cocktails and beer. When you add up all these little treats, they are precisely the extra calories that my minimal activity can't offset.
So what do you do about it?
I am still endlessly frustrated by the friend of mine who keeps dropping weight by doing Atkins. She's doing it wrong, essentially cutting all carbs from her diet (as in the induction phase) and not reintroducing them or learning how to eat properly. She's also doing minimal exercise (yoga once a week or so), yet she's steadily losing weight, and it drives me nuts. Then again, she has a lot more weight to lose, and after dieting for the past 6 or 8 months, she's only just reached the weight at which I freaked out and decided an emergency intervention was necessary to get my weight under controlled.
I know that I have to stop comparing myself to her because I've already decided that I don't want to lose weight that way.
I also know that I don't have the time or wherewithal to succeed at a formal diet right now. I can try smaller portions and healthier choices, continue eschewing fast food and take-out, resisting desserts and appetizers, drinking more water, eating more vegetables, and so forth.
And that leaves me with a dramatic increase in exercise.
Where I'm at right now, I will basically maintain my weight, give or take, by walking to and from school and not suddenly increasing my calories. My body has established an equilibrium around 180, and if I want to change that without appreciably changing my caloric intake, I need to introduce a big shock of exercise.
Choosing a More Active Lifestyle
When I was young, I never had trouble with my weight. At times, I actually struggled to keep weight on, and for a brief while I was clinically underweight. I know that my metabolism was much higher because I was younger, but more than that, I was an athlete and when I wasn't in training, I had a very active lifestyle.
When I was 14 or 15, my favorite activities were rollerblading, bicycling, playing tennis, swimming, and so forth. A typical spring or summer day would include rollerblading across town to meet up with friends, play tennis, then maybe rollerblade to the beach for a swim. When I was in training, I would make time for 5-mile runs, weight-lifting, and random calisthenics throughout the day. The first time I ever gained weight was when my friends started driving (they were all a year or two older than me) and they no longer wanted to rollerblade or bicycle places, but rather drive to a movie or sit around in basements and drink.
Living in a city, my lifestyle is a sort of hybridization - I walk everywhere now, yet I am walking to sedentary activities or drinking. I walked 9 miles the other day, but I was walking from a restaurant where we had pizza dinner to a bakery where we had cupcakes (it was my friend's birthday). Other days I'll be good all day (like actually good, not delusional good), then blow it with two beers, a bacon cheeseburger, and fries with a friend.
My challenge, I know, is to mitigate socializing with healthier eating. As an example, last week rather than meeting up to sit and drink, I suggested that my friend and I spend the evening at an art museum (obviously this was mainly because I was more interested in art too). We walked all around, then walked between the museum and dinner, which I can only hope offset the drinks and meal a little. I've asked that same friend if instead of meeting for dinner and drinks this weekend, we can go ice skating at a park in the city. Obviously there will be drinking and dinner as well, but I have to think that a couple hours of ice skating are better than a couple hours sitting at a barstool.
The weather here has been so bad that my plan to force myself to "go jogging no matter what" can't get off the ground. It's one thing to force oneself out in the cold or light rain, but it's quite different to try to jog on sidewalks with feet of snow or treacherously slippery ice.
That leaves me with things I can do in my apartment.... hula hooping, push-ups, sit-ups, and miscellaneous calisthenics. I have several books of workouts that can be done indoors, including the New York City Ballet Workout and the College Dorm Workout. I vaguely remember how to do yoga, and I could probably find a DVD I've bought at some point.
It still seems unfair
The point, I guess, is that I really need to do something and it seems unfair that I can't just eliminate carbs and solve all my problems. I have to keep reminding myself that the reason I want to lose weight primarily through exercise is because I need to develop a healthy lifestyle. That means activity, finding ways to incorporate exercise into my day, and discovering things I can do to offset the calories from occasional treats.
I have held, in the back of my mind, the excuse that I gained all this weight at once when I first went on antidepressants many years ago. While that may have been true at the time, I haven't addressed the problem and I am obviously eating in a way that sustains 180 pounds of me. I don't want to feel fat and ashamed of my body anymore, and it doesn't really matter how legitimate I think my excuse for gaining was, I am still fat and it's not going to go away on its own. I don't know if it would feel better to have gotten this fat by pigging out on cupcakes and drinking to excess, or like my friend, to have always been obese. I imagine not.
Though it seems a crutch at times, the most powerful weapon I have in my fight to lose weight is the fact that I used to be really fit. I know what my body can be like and how it feels to enjoy it, and the struggle is to get back in touch with that, rather than grasp flailing at some tenuous and imagined abstraction.
This means that on an average day (of which I have at least four per week this semester), I walk 4 or more miles, usually about an hour of which is at what the pedometer considers a moderate pace. That translates to roughly 400 calories burned (and possibly more, since I am carrying a heavy backpack, negotiating hills and stairs, and so forth). On other days, I've walked 8 and a half miles or more. One would think the weight would come ripping off.
And yet, I must be doing something terribly wrong with my diet if my weight won't budge.
Some Math
To lose one pound of fat, a person must net a loss of 3500 calories. That is, the amount of calories eaten less one's basal metabolic rate and those burned through exercise must together tally up to 500 less per day if one wishes to lose one pound in a week.
For my height, weight, age, and sex, my basal metabolic rate (BMR) is approximately 1611 calories. (You can calculate yours here.)
If I am burning 400 calories a day, yet staying the same weight, I must be eating minimally 400 calories more than that 1611, which puts me at 2000 calories a day or more.
When I did that math, I blinked, dumbfounded. Can that possibly be right??
Examining Thoughtless Days
Since cutting out all take-out and fast food, I would say I eat a fairly healthy diet. I've been resisting actively dieting because I have too much on my metaphorical plate already, and I assumed that getting the grossly unhealthy foods off the table would take care of the situation.
Yesterday, here is what I ate, with approximate times of day:
- 10:00 am: 1 SlimFast meal replacement bar
- 1:15 pm: a second SlimFast bar
- 5:00 pm: a ham and cheese sandwich, on multigrain bread
- 9:00 pm: 2 mint Oreos
- 11:00 pm: half a bag of frozen cauliflower, with a pat of SmartBalance butter spread, salt, and pepper
- 12:30 am: a small handful of raisins
- 1:30 am: instant Ramen, beef flavor
I wouldn't have said that was such a bad day, in so far as I didn't eat a formal "dinner," but I thoughtlessly snacked on the equivalent of a dinner and then some. I've been eating those SlimFast bars because they fit in my purse and I have ten minutes between my morning and afternoon classes, but then when I came home I was so hungry I had a sandwich. That would be fine if that were my dinner, but I had a second dinner through grazing.
Here was Monday, a less typical day when my mom came to the city:
- 9:00 am: SlimFast bar
- 3:00 pm: street vendor hot dog with sauerkraut and mustard
- 7:00 pm: fried rice chip things with peanut sauce, 1.5 curry puffs, large serving of green curry with beef over jasmine rice, big slice of chocolate mousse cake
- 11:00 pm: 2 mint Oreos
Again, I would have said that while I had a huge meal with my mom at dinner, the rest of the day wasn't so bad. Yet the hot dog was a much bigger meal than it seemed, calorie-wise, and I had the same calories in the SlimFast bar as in two Oreos (why do I even have Oreos in my apartment?!).
In my delusional thinking, I've been "pretty good" this week, but clearly I have slipped up a number of times and probably do so every day.
I read suggestions for how to cut calories from one's diet, and they're always absurdities like "Instead of having an egg McMuffin with cheese for breakfast, have a bran muffin!" or "Trade your 600-calorie Starbucks drink for a 200-calorie hot chocolate!" It's always struck me as a little ridiculous, since I am already eating the bran muffins and having neither lattes nor hot chocolate, but calorie-free diet soda instead. I already eat fat-free dressings and a minimum of condiments and sauces, I use SmartBalance cholesterol-reducing spread instead of butter, I eat whole grains, and I've even started drinking water (ugh). More than a few times, I've lamented, "What am I supposed to cut? Real food??"
Well yes, that is precisely what I have to do. I act like I am eating a basically healthy diet, but I sneak treats in. Dessert at dinner, packages of Oreos hanging around the apartment, appetizers instead of salads at dinner, cocktails and beer. When you add up all these little treats, they are precisely the extra calories that my minimal activity can't offset.
So what do you do about it?
I am still endlessly frustrated by the friend of mine who keeps dropping weight by doing Atkins. She's doing it wrong, essentially cutting all carbs from her diet (as in the induction phase) and not reintroducing them or learning how to eat properly. She's also doing minimal exercise (yoga once a week or so), yet she's steadily losing weight, and it drives me nuts. Then again, she has a lot more weight to lose, and after dieting for the past 6 or 8 months, she's only just reached the weight at which I freaked out and decided an emergency intervention was necessary to get my weight under controlled.
I know that I have to stop comparing myself to her because I've already decided that I don't want to lose weight that way.
I also know that I don't have the time or wherewithal to succeed at a formal diet right now. I can try smaller portions and healthier choices, continue eschewing fast food and take-out, resisting desserts and appetizers, drinking more water, eating more vegetables, and so forth.
And that leaves me with a dramatic increase in exercise.
Where I'm at right now, I will basically maintain my weight, give or take, by walking to and from school and not suddenly increasing my calories. My body has established an equilibrium around 180, and if I want to change that without appreciably changing my caloric intake, I need to introduce a big shock of exercise.
Choosing a More Active Lifestyle
When I was young, I never had trouble with my weight. At times, I actually struggled to keep weight on, and for a brief while I was clinically underweight. I know that my metabolism was much higher because I was younger, but more than that, I was an athlete and when I wasn't in training, I had a very active lifestyle.
When I was 14 or 15, my favorite activities were rollerblading, bicycling, playing tennis, swimming, and so forth. A typical spring or summer day would include rollerblading across town to meet up with friends, play tennis, then maybe rollerblade to the beach for a swim. When I was in training, I would make time for 5-mile runs, weight-lifting, and random calisthenics throughout the day. The first time I ever gained weight was when my friends started driving (they were all a year or two older than me) and they no longer wanted to rollerblade or bicycle places, but rather drive to a movie or sit around in basements and drink.
Living in a city, my lifestyle is a sort of hybridization - I walk everywhere now, yet I am walking to sedentary activities or drinking. I walked 9 miles the other day, but I was walking from a restaurant where we had pizza dinner to a bakery where we had cupcakes (it was my friend's birthday). Other days I'll be good all day (like actually good, not delusional good), then blow it with two beers, a bacon cheeseburger, and fries with a friend.
My challenge, I know, is to mitigate socializing with healthier eating. As an example, last week rather than meeting up to sit and drink, I suggested that my friend and I spend the evening at an art museum (obviously this was mainly because I was more interested in art too). We walked all around, then walked between the museum and dinner, which I can only hope offset the drinks and meal a little. I've asked that same friend if instead of meeting for dinner and drinks this weekend, we can go ice skating at a park in the city. Obviously there will be drinking and dinner as well, but I have to think that a couple hours of ice skating are better than a couple hours sitting at a barstool.
The weather here has been so bad that my plan to force myself to "go jogging no matter what" can't get off the ground. It's one thing to force oneself out in the cold or light rain, but it's quite different to try to jog on sidewalks with feet of snow or treacherously slippery ice.
That leaves me with things I can do in my apartment.... hula hooping, push-ups, sit-ups, and miscellaneous calisthenics. I have several books of workouts that can be done indoors, including the New York City Ballet Workout and the College Dorm Workout. I vaguely remember how to do yoga, and I could probably find a DVD I've bought at some point.
It still seems unfair
The point, I guess, is that I really need to do something and it seems unfair that I can't just eliminate carbs and solve all my problems. I have to keep reminding myself that the reason I want to lose weight primarily through exercise is because I need to develop a healthy lifestyle. That means activity, finding ways to incorporate exercise into my day, and discovering things I can do to offset the calories from occasional treats.
I have held, in the back of my mind, the excuse that I gained all this weight at once when I first went on antidepressants many years ago. While that may have been true at the time, I haven't addressed the problem and I am obviously eating in a way that sustains 180 pounds of me. I don't want to feel fat and ashamed of my body anymore, and it doesn't really matter how legitimate I think my excuse for gaining was, I am still fat and it's not going to go away on its own. I don't know if it would feel better to have gotten this fat by pigging out on cupcakes and drinking to excess, or like my friend, to have always been obese. I imagine not.
Though it seems a crutch at times, the most powerful weapon I have in my fight to lose weight is the fact that I used to be really fit. I know what my body can be like and how it feels to enjoy it, and the struggle is to get back in touch with that, rather than grasp flailing at some tenuous and imagined abstraction.
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