Listening to my body

A few days ago I added a night time dose of iron to supplement my morning dose and boy what a difference. I thought my sluggishness was due to the crazy hours I've been keeping, but not so much. I feel so much better, I'm even not as cold as I usually am. It's funny how while I'm working hard to make sure one thing is on point (protein), another thing (iron) needed my attention. Such is the DS life, vigilance is required for life.

A good thing about the crazy hours I keep is that I now have a solid exercise plan. Tomorrow I am joining the gym at my job. I can put in my 8 hours, go to the gym and still catch the first bus home. It just works out almost perfectly and the price is right, a mere $30/month and no initial fee. They have the usual weights & machines, plus a spa & sauna and personal trainer services. I also get a fitness assessment and have the opportunity to set goals, etc. My goal is to gain some muscle and lose some fat and end up around 216 by the end of the year. The more and more I read, the more and more I realize that building muscle and improving overall strength and conditioning is important for long term health. Like I've said before, being healthy is more important to me than a number on the scale. I know I will hit my weight loss goals, but I want to be healthy and full of vigor and vitality when I get there. I don't want to be 180 lbs and be sickly. No way.

I seem to be more flabby lately, it's weird, maybe I am noticing it more. As I continue to lose fat, it feels more and more like I am swimming in a sack of skin. Lovely visual, I know, but that's the best description I can give. I don't hate it or any thing, but it's kinda getting in the way. What trips me out the most if my back. I can see my shoulder blades, my ribs, my vertebrae. More and more of the "fat" Tia is disappearing, even my pear shape is diminishing slowly. Craziness. I wore a pair of jeans today that I bought in early July that I will be giving away, I shouldn't really wear them, they're too big now...in truth, so are the pair of khakis I fixin' to wear tomorrow! I'm gonna try to go out this weekend and pick a couple of things up. God help me.

It'll soon be time to start shopping for cold weather clothes. I think I've done good so far with my work clothes, I don't do dressy too much, mostly nice jeans, khakis with fitted shirts or a cute blouse with nice sandals/flats or loafers. I'm thinking I need to look at sweaters and stuff now and maybe more substantial loafers or nice boots. I don't know. I'm thinking of going back to Texas so my sister can help me, everything makes much more sense when she is around.

Unexpected

There is very little that I can recall -- whether consciously or not -- about growing up morbidly obese. It's not that not too much happened, but mostly I choose not to dwell on those memories, instead, opting to try to live in the now. There is one instance, however that I won't forget. I had just gotten on the school bus on the way to middle school and there weren't any seats left and immediately I felt an overwhelming of mixture of embarrassment, shame and dread which only doubled in intensity when I quickly realized that none of the boys dared to give up their seats for me and so, I, the fat girl, had to stand up the entire trip to school. Talk about soul-crunching. I was never the girl that boys held the door open for, or offered their chair to or any of that. Chivalry was not something I was familiar with. Fast forward to this afternoon and I get on the bus to go back to suburbia and I'm instantly transported back to my 14 year old self and again I see that every seat is taken. I look from the front of the bus to the back - half filled with men - and after a few seconds start taking off my back pack in order to steady myself for the ride when a nice man kindly offers his seat to me. I tell ya, I nearly burst into tears and I'm sooooo not the bursting into tears type. I'm getting verklempt just thinking about it now. Of all the wonderful and amazing and beautiful things that have happened to and for me the past two years, I might have to say that this ranks at the top. The only other time I have felt this way was when I was headed toward the finish line at the end of my first 10K. So, maybe I'm overreacting, this is the south so chivalry is allegedly abundant but oh my gosh, I have to tell you, my heart was filled, absolutely filled, when the man gave up his seat to me. Sometimes I still operate in fat girl (a.k.a. invisible girl) mode where I just assume that the way I've been treated before is the way I will be treated now, but apparently that may not be the case, needless to say that it is both a sad and a happy thing.

I don't know y'all, it was such an unexpected thing, I didn't expect to have that boost of awesomeness in my life today, but I'll gladly take it.

Missing.

Where the hell have I been? Yes, I know. Well, I went to Texas, had a grand old time and came home with a wicked cold that I've been battling for like a week. Not fun. I'm coughing up a lung as I type. I haven't weighed since the 14th since I just got my scale back today. I took it to be used at the Atlanta Walk from Obesity event we had and totally forgot about it, then I went out of town and had to coordinate to finally get it back today. God only knows what I weigh, but eating in Texas was terrible and since then it's been mediocre, being sick makes me not want to eat so I've started to retain water again, hopefully by Monday things will be back to normal. Despite it all, I'm still shrinking. I'm starting to notice the veins in my arms now, I gotta tell ya, it kinda freaked me out. I also have almost no back fat, attractive visual, I know, but seriously, you can clearly feel and even see a hint of my ribs from the back. Awesome.

Anyway, just checking in and letting y'all know I'm still around, just drugged up, tired, cough-y and sneezy. Ugh.

Random question: Does plain old Tylenol make anyone else absolutely groggy? Absolutely puts me to sleep although my understanding is that it shouldn't...

You know you're losing weight....

.... quicker than you realize when your Spanx start feeling like you're wearing shorts!

Tennis last night was canceled because of rain....boooooo... and again with the rain tonight, so it looks like Thursday, weather permitting, I'll head out to the courts and hit some balls.

I'm headed to Texas next weekend to go see my nephew play football, it's a real life "Friday Night Lights". He's got his eyes set on playing football on Saturdays and has some major college programs with their eyes on him so I can't wait to see him shine. He's such a sweet kid and it'll be fun to see him run around and do his thing. I'm leaving a week from Thursday and will stay through Sunday. My sister, God bless her, is going to take me shopping and teach all about this stuff I hear women refer to as makeup. :) It should be fun. Gonna take more than enough protein mix and drink at least two shakes a day, morning and night. We'll be running around during the day so getting 3 in might be too difficult BUT y'know, Texas=barbecue so I will eating a lot of that and Mexican food.

Ok, here's a weird thing, probably the weirdest post-DS side effect that I've experienced and I haven't really heard or read about anyone else dealing with this. Since about 6 months from surgery on I've had a problem where it seems like I guess I've lost weight in my throat (if that makes any sense) such that my swallowing mechanism doesn't close as tightly as it did pre-surgery. For awhile there, I would, every now and then, have an episode where I was drinking or eating and water or food would seemingly go down the wrong pipe, so to speak. It doesn't happen very often now, but maybe once a quarter or something like that. I guess I've gotten used to swallowing harder or something. I thought I'd mention it and put it out there just in case someone else had the same thing happen. I don't know, it could just be me.

Alrighty then, time for food!

Run, Tia, run!

So I saw my photos from the US 10K Classic and they crack me up! I don't know why they do, but they do...I guess I still don't see myself like that completely. It's weird.

Apparently, while I thought I wasn't losing weight and not dropping any sizes, I apparently did and it's funny because it seems like it happened overnight. My large size t-shirts are on the verge of being a little too loose, my old XL's are now nightshirts and look silly if I even dare wear them in public. My size 18 pants are getting baggy and the 16's are thisclose to being perfect. The only thing I am struggling with is with the excess skin on my thighs, especially between my thighs, they are giving me a weird gait, I can't walk like how I want to because I have so much flab interference.

The impossible has happened. I want to run a better 10K, the running bug has bit. I'm slightly annoyed because I tell myself that I do not like running, but here's the thing, I can run further and much easier than I thought. I like that. A friend is going to run the ING half marathon next year, now I know I ain't doing that, but my goal is to actually run, not walk, a 5K at some point and then run, not walk, a 10K. When I can do the 5K successfully, then I will commit to doing the half marathon, even if I walk 1/2 of it. The big thing is that I need to drop more weight which is what I am focusing on hard core the rest of the year, probably the next 6 months.

Tennis wise, I am attending Monday night drills and have 1/2 hour lessons with my tennis instructor every week. Joining a team is the next big thing, but I want to get better before that happens. That's what I am focusing on the exercise front for now and I think that will keep me busy for awhile.

I haven't weighed this weekend because of the big C, no need to aggravate myself for no reason, as long as I am on track, all will be good.

I rock.

Got back from the US 10K Classic about two and a half hours ago. It was awesome, mostly because of the weather - overcast and breezy! Perfection! I can't believe I am actually typing these words, but I felt totally fine afterwards, in fact - brace yourselves - I actually ran the last 200 yards! I actually ran across the finish line! I'm not sure what my time was, I think in the 1:55 range which is about 35 minutes faster than last year. I would have liked to have done better, but the hills on this course are killer so I'm happy. Most importantly, I was nowhere near last! I was paranoid for a second that I might be, but there were several hundred people behind me by the time I finished.

This is the first time, in God only knows how long, that I felt like I was more fit than I thought I was, I mean, I was passing people going up the hills, people who were much smaller than me! Craziness! The last two races, I was definitely spent by the end, but not this time. I carb loaded yesterday and tried to be smart about things this morning. I think it worked because I wasn't totally exhausted. It was kinda cool.

The only downside is the after effects of carb loading... ugh. My innards are NOT happy with me right now. Thankfully they have the rest of the day to toss and turn and hopefully will have settled down by tomorrow AM. Right now, I'm supposed to be "working" but me thinks it's nap time...I did get up at 4:30 this morning!