Thylacineclone's posterous

but I thought I would revisit just to note that my body decided to dip into "Normal" BMI.  I prefer the Wii Fit telling me I am "Ideal" though I doubt any magazine editors or subscribers would agree.

On paper I am not particularly well but stuff paper, I feel much better than I used to and am very pleased I experienced this journey.  The world treats you so differently for a start.  That is a sad indictment of the world and I fight against it wherever I see it but the fact is it is a kinder place than I imagined.  It does get under your skin when a carriage full of people all look at you with fear that you may try to sit next to them whether you acknowledge it or not.

I can blend into the background now, that is a luxury I have never had before.

It is very strage to have gone from a goal of losing to a goal of "don't change", "stay right where you are".  Initially my body grabbed the extra calories and used them for renovations and the scales creeped up to 79kg or so in the first week which was strange to watch though my clothes didn't get tight or anything.  I may just have been building more muscle, I don't know.  I have now just naturally fallen back to about the same point when I declared maintenance begun though my body is built a little differently now which is also related to a change in exercise with a view to the cold weather coming.

You see kiddies, a year or so ago my lifelong asthma was out of control, first the doc was sure it was lung cancer but in the end it is just boring old smoking related progressive COPD, google it if you want more details. I had quit smoking before starting the weight loss but unfortunately it was far too late.  I can't take the drugs designed to slow/control it so we chase it with steroidal asthma drugs and try to control the environmental factors as much as possible.  Humidity is hell, bad air conditioning tries to kill me and cold is no fun at all.   It has stopped me from being able to really improve aerobically though the weights are fine and I can walk for many miles, breaking into a jog feels like death and sounds like a backfiring car and cycling hasn't really got any easier though I still do it. 

So now I am trying to keep my lung capacity, the old exercise bike has been dragged out of garage storage and I found a mini trampoline for $12 at kmart and I have been bouncing and indoor cycling (while hacking up my lungs) in between weight workouts.  It is an interesting exercise in patience as it really isn't riveting to cycle and cycle and cycle and still be looking at the same things. I try to disappear into my music and not think about all the crud coming up from my lungs or how bored I am.  I am noticing improvements in that I can go longer/faster in the controlled atmosphere of what was once my study but now looks like a pretty shoddy gym.

Had I not lost weight before my lungs showed their complaints I would likely be dead by now, it takes a lot of lung power to move unfit 140kg, lung power I no longer have. I do need to keep some weight on in case of crises so now the task is to eat enough to keep a little weight on and sustain my exercise regime.  I am trying to do that healthily along with my usual daily vices of a liitle chocolate and/or icecream. 

I have decided that I am happy where i am for the moment and my new mantra is "no going over 80kg" which gives me some leeway.  I am back to calorie counting at http://www.calorieking.com.au as I need to find an extra 500 or so a day which isn't as easy as you may think after the last 2 years have changed my habits and appetite and of course my daily calories have gone down with my weight.  

I have no idea what my ideal weight may be if the saggy stuff and muscle is included, I think I am in a healthy weight range even though the BMI says i am still overweight.

I have the world's best collarbones but the complete lack of backside padding is a little uncomfortable, I wish one of my saggy bellies would slide around and down or perhaps one of my thighs could creep upwards ;)

I bought some 34" jeans last week, that are already a bit baggy, my body is using the extra fuel for renovating it seems

I am under 80kg

How extremely weird

The last pants I bought were 35"

How extremely weird

Yay me!

Even if I do feel a bit guilty because it stopped being hard ages ago

(I know, I'm extremely weird)

So after being stable for quite a while my body is rearranging itself
again and suddenly my "thin clothes" are baggy. I'll keep the ticker
updated but I am not quite sure what is going on, I am moving a bit
more but also eating more. Oh well, not complaining. Anyway, I
thought it might be time to talk about some of the unexpected
downsides of significant weightloss, of course there are some but in
the rah rah of the weightloss industry we rarely hear about them :-

Your fat friends will not be happy when you prove it isn't impossible,
I am really sick of hearing a touch of hopeful when I get the
inevitable question "was it deliberate or is cancer eating you from
the inside?", ok, so I may have paraphrased just a tad, that seems to
be the gist though.

In crowds people get much closer to your head than they used to when
squeezing by, my personal space is physically much less but my
psychological comfort zone is the same.

I can no longer eat a doughnut without going into a partial fat/sugar
coma and feeling totally sluggish and sleepy, that sucks because I
love a good doughnut. In general I feel life more acutely, that is
not always a good thing.

If I loved clothes shopping I would be in heaven, I don't so I am not.

There is always the hard reminder of what once was in the floppy folds
and saggy baggy skin, that is harder to clothe than when the sack was
full.

The process hurts, not as much as a life of obesity but it is not painless.

Was/is it worth it? Hell yes but there are downsides and
realistically they need to be thought about and prepared for.

November '10

So, it seems I am not much of a blogger but just in case anyone is wondering I am still hovering in the mid 80s kilogram wise, exercising daily and eating all I feel like. I do still prefer the muscle stuff to the cardio which has to be forced but I know where it has got me and that makes me do it.  I try to mix it up a bit, today it was a 6.5km walk (58 minutes), it will be weights tomorrow and the day after I may well be stepping or dancing about the loungeroom to tragic 80s pop.  It is good for the head and the body.

Anyway, just keeping on, living my life.  I just didn't want anyone landing here and assuming that because i stopped paying attention to this space I stopped paying attention to my to my mission and was bouncing back up. 

I sometimes wonder about dropping more but there is still the excess skin to deal with and I like my balance now, this seems to be a good meeting point of food and activity.  My body is still changing and my doc reminds me that if I went the $20000 body lift route (um, no!) that the surgeon would probably cut away 10-15 kg worth which is not losable in any other way, if I take 10 kg off for BMI calculations it puts me in the normal range so unless my body decides it wants less calories or more activity I will stay around here (I won't let my body decide on more calories/less activity)

Anyway, if google brought you here please know that you don't need expensive diet plans and gym memberships etc.  You just need to make the decision and figure out the right way for you.  This was mine and so far it is suiting me just fine.  The fact that it suits me has made the last 2 years and 17 points off BMI much easier than I ever imagined it could be. 

It is worth it

I know what you're thinking, "hah, she fell off the wagon", nope, just been living my strange little life.  I exercise about an hour a day (alternating weights and cardio) and eat whatever I want, I generally want different stuff than I used to.  I only ever intended to get under 100kg but I find myself slowly slipping lower and am at 87.5kg which gives me a BMI of 29.6 which means I am just fat, not obese but It doesn't tell the story of feeling strong and non-disabled and I promise, I feel no deprivation whatsoever over food, I eat whatever I want.  I have reprogrammed myself and no longer think about it, it is just life now.  My arthritic sore self in the mornings is transformed by the exercise and set up for the day.  I will never pretend that my first thought on a chilly morning is "yay, time to work out!" but once I get started and warm up I honestly enjoy the challenge and I do challenge myself to do an extra rep or hold a position a little longer.

My 97cm (38") pants are getting baggy even though they are surrounding a lot of excess skin.  I used to wear 127cm (48")  or 132cm (50") depending on brand/cut.

A note for women, if you are worried about using heavy weights don't be, we don't get bulked up without steroids/hormones etc.  We just get strong.  Being strong is awesome and those muscles spend their day burning energy so there is much more food than there would be without them and I still love my tucker.

As of this morning I am 93kg but I haven't been dieting, we do eat much better than we used to but mostly I am just hooked on the exercise.  My weight training is every second day and pretty intense so it is hard to know how much is fat and how much is muscle, I still have lots of flab but my body shape is changing and the belly is slowly disappearing, I do cardio stuff on the alternate days.  I am stronger, fitter, saggier ;)  and feeling good.  I start working 4 days a week next week. 

Pretty big change to a life in 350 days!