#600... and it's a doozy!

Believe it or not, this is my 600th post, 600 posts in like 2 1/2 years. Wow. That's a lot of blabbing on my part! Well, it's that time of year and so I have been thinking long and hard about resolutions for 2009. This time around, it's not so much about accomplishing a lot of little things, but I want to focus on making good strides toward living a normal healthy lifestyle where my weight and my surgery and my body issues aren't so present in my day to day life.

I've been back and forth with myself over the last several months about whether or not I am happy where I am weight-wise, whether getting down below 200 is feasible or not, whether hitting a certain number is all that important to me. I think what I have learned from all that is I still have issues with the fear of success. It is by far, the hardest thing for me to overcome, it sucks because I really want to be able to say that I'm done losing weight, but I guess, subconsciously, I am afraid of what that really means. I don't know. This hurdle, by far, is the most important one for me to overcome in 2009.

Having said that, after a very crazy holiday season filled with lots of holiday food of all kinds, it's time to get back on track. I continue to slowly shrink in size (which honestly boggles the mind considering how I've been eating lately) so I know my DS still works. I am going to focus on exercise. I haven't pushed myself lately and I think it's time. I've been playing a fair amount of tennis, but with the sketchy weather lately, it hasn't been consistent. I will be signing up for a gym in January, like the rest of America and will start the exercise portion of the Body for LIFE program. I've done BFL before with good results and I will continue to do tennis 2-3 times a week, mostly Sunday afternoon and Monday evenings.

My nutritional requirements haven't changed. Still need to get in at least 2 protein shakes a day, preferably three. Still need to take my supplements, still need to greatly limit the carbs and dairy in my diet. On this front, the only thing I need to improve is to maintain consistency and to basically expand my horizons a little bit and be a little more adventurous with my food. Eating the same things over and over again is convenient, but makes it easy to get off track when boredom sets in. I have to learn that not all veggies are evil. :)

Long story short, yes, the ultimate goal is to see onederland. I don't know when, I'm not putting a timetable on it, but that's the goal. I hope to get pretty damn close within the first 12 weeks.

I made great strides in 2008 in being more social, the biggest thing toward that end was leaving my business and returning to the corporate world. Awesome. It was like I was missing from the world and rediscovered life. I've had a great time just going to work, going out to lunch, going to functions after work, basically just being engaged with other people without all the BS and craziness. I really, really missed that when I was working my my business partner. It's also been awesome to get up every day and look like and feel like an adult. I know that's a weird statement, but I've really enjoyed buying and wearing work clothes, mind you, we have somewhat of a casual work environment where many of my coworkers are t-shirts and tennis shoes type of folks, which is perfectly acceptable, but I don't want to be one of them. I was a card-carrying member when I was 500+ lbs, but not anymore. I like wearing good clothes to work, having my hair look cute, wearing an actual coat with a scarf, all of that. It just makes me feel good and makes me feel like I've made big strides in leaving some of the old Tia behind that needed being left behind. The one thing I wanted to do in 2008 that I haven't done yet is date. I really want to start dating but haven't the slightest idea of how to get that going. One thing I did notice is that I am oblivious to signals that guys send off. I saw this one guy in the cafeteria at work and we had a little moment, a little spark and I just walked away... it didn't occur to me til later that duh, there was something there. Sigh, I need like a dating coach or something.... The old biological clock is ticking and it's not like I want to get married tomorrow, I just want to be going down that road.

All of this is important because in 2009, I will be focusing on my new business venture which I am very excited about. I've been working on it for like two months now and it's materializing into something that I really feel will be successful for me and most importantly, I get to drive. I get to set the tone. I get to be leader and that excites me the most. I've been able to network and talk to potential clients and have felt incredibly confident in myself and I finally know what it's like to not have to be so worried about how fat I am. It's awesome. These are people who haven't the faintest clue that I was ever so morbidly obese and it's such a trip to actually be normal. Y'know sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and still see a fat girl and then other times, especially when I can see my reflection up against people whom I consider to be normal, I am still shocked that I'm fairly normal, at least normal enough to not stand out from the crowd -- except for being almost 6' tall, but I'm used to that!

Going back to BFL issue, it's a 12 week program and in that time, my goal is to work the program as best as I can. In those twelve weeks, I want to lose 25 lbs of body fat. I don't know if that is going to translate to 25 lbs lost on the scale because with this program, it does increase muscle and strength. I think the best measure of success will be a combination of fat lost, weight lost and inches lost. I will take my % body fat on Day 1 and will keep a weekly tally. I will do the same with measurements, but will make that a monthly thing and weight loss will be a daily thing. The BFL program has it's own progress sheets so I will be keep those up.

I feel good about the start of the year, it isn't a big huge goal, just something to get the year started off right. I do have much smaller ambitions, like reading more books. Since I've been taking public transportation to work for the last 6 months, I have read a ton of books, some of them from my list from last year, others that have caught my eye and some are recommendations from friends. I have a stack of 7-8 books that I've purchased in the last couple of weeks that are already on my reading list and I look forward to picking up some more. First up is "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini, I love "The Kite Runner" so am looking forward to finishing this one.

A couple of weeks ago I had a bunch of Real Woman Dollars from Lane Bryant so I decided to go shopping (yet again) and surprise, surprise, I am thisclose to being too small for that store. All the tops are really too big, the sweaters are okay because I usually wear some type of shirt under them so they fit fine. I am suffering from loose waist/bagging bottom syndrome in my Right Fit size 2 jeans so I bought a couple of pairs of size 1's which fit better although they are a little snug in the thigh. Ah, my thighs, my perennial problem area. Hopefully, the work I do in BFL will help. I don't plan to have any kind of plastic surgery in 2009, but will probably start seriously looking into it. I need a lot of work done and will just have to determine what are my wants and what can I live with.

Okay, so I have to tell you about Christmas. I spent Christmas at my friend L's house. I initially thought it was going to be a large group of similarly stranded folks gathering to partake of some holiday cheer, turns out it was largely her family and several neighbors, not too many other single folk. Anyway, it was great overall, food was awesome and I enjoyed myself for the most part. Here's the thing, this is a friend I had known in college and especially during our freshman year, we were very close. To be honest, she was also the pretty one and I was your typical "fat sidekick". That was the role I served, she wasn't much a friend in retrospect, it was really all about her and all the drama in her life. That was the case for the first couple of years of school, but it calmed down the last two years and I sort of went on my way. After graduation we ended up in the same city, but we didn't really live close to each so we didn't hang out much, but when we did, same old story. Anyway this one time, we were volunteering with our local alumni club which was sponsoring a fundraising event, a black tie affair. We were tasked to welcome the guests and give them name-tags or something, I really don't remember. Anyway at the beginning of the night, we were sitting at a table with 3 or 4 other friends (all women) when her boyfriend at the time shows up. She gets all giggly and proceeds to introduce him, one by one, to everyone at the table - except me. I was so hurt. The funny thing is that if I truly thought it was an accident, it wouldn't have bothered me so much and I probably would have just introduced myself and forgotten about it, but in my heart, I knew it was intentional. I was already feeling self-conscious because I had to wear my standard black skirt, white shirt (the only "dressy" outfit I had) and of course, I was the biggest person there. I already felt crappy from the get-go and then she goes and does that. After that night, I avoided her and maybe saw her once or twice in the following weeks, but honestly hadn't talked to her in like 8 or 9 years.

So Christmas dinner, 2008. I will be the first to admit that sometimes people change and I had largely forgiven her and frankly moved on. This is her first time seeing me in years, so obviously, I've lost a lot of weight and she seems genuinely happy about it. Everything seems fine, I get introduced to her whole family, they are perfectly nice people, all is good. Then her neighbors get there. Her out of town family members don't know these people, neither do I. L proceeds to introduce her neighbors, one by one, to everyone there - except for me. It registered in my brain, but I was like "ok, whatever" and I make sure to introduce myself and move on.

After all that, we eat, after dinner, we play a few games - Taboo and Catchphrase, good times. So we're all chilling talking and stuff and the conversation turns to how good the food was. L starts talking about which person made what -- so and so made the banana pudding, she made the spaghetti, her dad cooked almost all the desserts, etc. She runs down almost the entire menu and mind you, I'm sitting almost directly in front of her, maybe 3 feet away and she doesn't mention anything I brought. Mind you, I brought the freakin' Christmas ham and baked mac & cheese, both big hits! I just looked at her. I was done. It's like what Maya Angelou said "when people show you who they are, believe them!" I saw all I needed to see and within an hour or so, I was in my car, making my way home. I won't be socializing with her anymore. It's not that I'm mad, honestly, I'm really not, I feel more relieved, like I dodged a bullet, because what I do remember most about our "friendship" in college was that I was a very, very good friend to her and she wasn't much of one to me. She was exhausting and kinda shallow and trifling. Nope, don't need that crap. When I hugged her goodnight, it was more of a good-bye. I'm sure I'll come across her now that I'm more out and about and I'll be sure to be perfectly amicable, but outside of that, not gonna go there!

Well, I've babbled enough. I need to start blogging more consistently, I tend to keep all my thoughts in reserve and then it's like an avalanche! Good grief!