Me, a year ago (left) and me now (right)
A year ago, a reader at an event asked to take a picture with me and posted it on Facebook. When I saw it, I didn’t look at our happy faces. I focused on the roll of fat around my waist.
I hadn’t been happy with my weight for a long time, but that really struck home.
Things I had tried to lose weight
- Weight Watchers. This actually mostly worked, but I was always hungry and I got tired of constantly counting points. Due to some quirks of the time period I attended, I cooked atrocious things like Black Bean Brownies (just because they are the same color doesn’t mean they taste like brownies - but WW used to give you lots of credit for fiber). Once at a family reunion we all got food poisoning and took turns hurrying to the bathroom. But the next day I had my lowest weigh-in ever at WW, so food poisoning FTW!
- Being mindful of every bite, taste, sensation. I actually think this is a good thing, but I usually read when I eat, so my concentration is fragmented.
- Eating 35 grams of carbs a day, two days a week. I remember sitting with my friend Amy every Thursday for 17 weeks when she did her chemo treatment and glumly regarding my turkey breast and hard boiled eggs. It turns out all kinds of high protein or high fat things have some carbs in them - and they add up fast.
- Living on 600 calories two days a week. A friend did this and lost eight pounds. I would pour over the menus and wonder how I could possibly do it since I am so active.
And that’s the thing. Even though writing is a sedentary occupation, I have always been otherwise active. I was fit AND fat, or mostly fit and fat. Last fall I had had to switch to walking instead of running, after having been diagnosed with moderate to severe arthritis in both knees. I asked my doctor if I could run again if I lost 20 pounds. You could practically see the thought bubble over his head:
Like that will ever happen. Despite my knees, I was still active: walking, jiujitsu, kung fu, and weight lifting. However,
study after study will tell you that you can’t lose weight through exercise.
But….
I had heard of friends of friends who lost a lot of weight once they started using a treadmill desk. And last fall I unexpectedly got some German money for
Shock Point, which nearly ten years later still sells well over there.
So I bought a
LIfeSpan treadmill desk, found an old computer (from 2008, but still runs what I need) and started using it when I wrote (and sometimes when I watched Netflix). I wear a Fitbit and went from putting in 12K steps a day to 25—30K. In the first eleven weeks, I lost eight pounds.
The pace has slowed now, but I’m still losing a pound every couple of weeks. Not that much different from Weight Watchers, but I am eating whatever I want! (Caveat: I mostly eat healthy.) I’m running again, and my knees feel fine. Every pound less is 3-4 pounds less on the knees.
And this morning I was down 22 pounds!
How to replicate this yourself
- Get a Lifespan desk
- Or try making one yourself (google DIY Treadmill Desk)
- Or try housewalking.
First of all, have you watched this yet? If not, do. Then we’ll talk:
Now here’s what I have to add to the topic of weight and body image and all that:
When I was quite a bit heavier than I am now, I went through Weight Watchers. And I’ll never forget what the instructor told us at one of the meetings: “Underwear isn’t supposed to hurt.” Changed my life, that statement. But maybe not for reasons the instructor would have expected.
She was trying to inspire us to reach our goal weights, and that was fine, as far as it went. But what it really said–to me, at least–was that we might not even realize we’re being mean to ourselves by wearing clothes that don’t fit us well. Maybe we’re so caught up in the idea of “these are the pants I’ll wear when I get down to X pounds,” we forget that we’re allowed to feel comfortable NOW, even before or while we work on losing weight.
Maybe some of you are like me, and you’re very good at being stern with yourselves. Being the drill sergeant, the disciplinarian, the one who makes up all the rules and then tries to come up with proper consequences when you violate them. So if you eat this cupcake, you’d better work out twice as hard tomorrow. Or my favorite at one time, the “bland days” that would follow a few days of unbridled eating. Then it was nothing but rice and vegetables or dry toast for me. Fun, huh? Really enjoying my life.
But I don’t do any of that anymore. Because I realized there’s no one making me be mean to myself but me. I’m a full-grown adult now, and I’m allowed to treat myself the way I would treat someone I love. I can’t imagine saying to my niece or to my best friend, “You ate half a bag of tortilla chips and a whole container of salsa this afternoon? Bad! You’re horrible! You’d better eat nothing but salads for the next five days!” Instead I’m sure I’d laugh it off, tell them I’ve done the same and more in times of stress (you have no idea how many cookies I sometimes need to get myself through the writing of some chapter that’s giving me fits), and then we’d go on talking about something far more important than whether her pants would be too tight tomorrow. Yes, they probably will. So what? Life goes on.
What I always found destructive in those times of self-criticism was the attitude of, “Oh, well, I’ve ruined it already. Might as well just keep eating everything in the world.” Uh, no. Might as well go do something sweet for myself instead, like take a hot bath or read a great book or pop in some rom-com DVD. Any of those take the place of chips or cookies–pure indulgence, meant only for me. Which means I’m also not allowed to criticize myself for goofing off. That’s right, I’m doing this right now. Because I’m allowed to be nice to myself.
I mentioned last week that I’m currently on a green smoothie kick, but let me be clear: It’s not a punishment of some kind. I’m doing it because I finally experienced what a proper green smoothie tastes like, I enjoyed it, I liked how it felt in my body, and so as a kindness to myself I’m going to drink some more. But if at any point I decide I don’t like the taste anymore or I don’t like that full feeling from having gobs and gobs of fruits and nuts and vegetables in what seems like a simple chocolate milkshake (by the way, I’ve been working on that recipe and have made it even better), then that’s it. No more. I’ll only do it if it feels nice.
That’s one of the pleasures of being an adult. A pleasure I wish I had learned back when I was a chubby teenager wearing clothing that hurt me every day, thinking it would motivate me to be skinnier. It didn’t. It just made me feel bad.
So I hope next time you pull on a pair of underwear with a waistband that cuts into your skin, you stop yourself and think, “Underwear isn’t supposed to hurt.” And that you take the next step by going to Target or wherever and buying yourself a package of underwear one size up. Or two sizes up, if you need to. Because that one simple thing might mean the difference between you feeling happy and comfortable in your body today, and you feeling miserable and guilty and unworthy. Such a simple fix. And believe me, you deserve it.
And the next time you go crazy eating something you’re sure you’re not supposed to eat, shrug it off. Do better tomorrow. Or do better starting a minute from now–the right path is always there waiting for you, whenever you feel like stepping back onto it. No worries, no punishment, no “bland days” or drill sergeant. The time to be sweet to yourself starts now.
It’s the kind of thing you can get used to.
Lately, I've been feeling as if I can find no time to revise my current WIP, a YA Mystery. I love, love, love the story and am committed to trying to get it polished up so I can re-submit it.
Summer was full of activities, classes, and To Do Lists, but my original deadline of Sept. 1, 2010 has come and gone. I'm in desperate need of finding 30 minutes a day, just 30 minutes. I could then do a few pages at a time.
The main culprit, if I can call it that, is that I'm now seriously focusing on getting healthy. I've joined Weight Watchers and now use my lunch hour to work out. That used to be my writing time.
I now need to find that 30 minutes elsewhere. It's like balancing a budget. If you overspend by $30, then you need to make up the $30 from somewhere else.
Finding that 30 minute make up time is my writing goal for the week.
