8.4 Pounds and Counting
Yes, it will be a long road but I'm ahead of target. I estimated 1 pound per week and at week 7 I've lost 8.4. Anyone that has ever dieted knows how long it seems. All those lose weight quick promises in the back of magazines or popping up on your email account aren't worth a hill of beans in the long run. I may be able to put on 2 lbs per week but I can only lose about 1. It's a shame but I did it to myself.
I have had so many insights in the last few weeks. The most important of all may be that I am destined to work for Weight Watchers. I am one of those typical stories where a meeting leader loses the same weight over and over before he/she gets smart and finishes what he/she started. Let me walk you through my logic. All my life I have been pigeon holed into jobs involving the left side of my brain. I've worked in accounting departments and insurance for most of my adult life. The unfortunate part is that I am a totally right brain person. I am all language and intuition; art and culture. Once you have taken a career path it seems like a speeding train that will not let you off at your stop. I think my stop is coming up and I want to inspire people to lose weight and regain their health! This October I will turn 55 and become eligible for a small pension from New York State. I will have that little cushion to help transition into a new career.
This has excited me and sealed my resolve to lose this weight once and for all. I have no fear of pubic speaking, I understand the need to sell Weight Watchers' tools to those that need the tool kit to focus their efforts and I can talk anyone into just about anything if I believe in it. I do believe in Weight Watchers! It is the same concept as renewing your faith every Sunday at church. You go for support and to renew your resolve to stay on track. And I will preach the word of good health and fitness...Hallelujah!
The interesting thing about writing anonymously is that none of you out there have ever witnessed one of my...shall we call them...moments of insight. I have had plenty that I have seen through to the bitter end and some that, over time, loose their zing. They all seem to happen right before the beginning of my menstrual cycle. Now that you are writing me off as a estrogen lunatic...please hear me out. When I was younger I used to think that my thinking was blurred by my hormones. I would get angry or sad for what appeared to be no reason. Now that I've had 40 some years to look back on I realize that when I am heavy with estrogen I can see clearly and I am almost ultra-perceptive. Those flashes of anger or sadness were because I could see my life clearly and could not conceal the issues from myself by denial. Now that I have rid my life of the things that were not right for me I am not experiencing anger or sadness but helpful insights that move me forward through life. I'm not making this up. For instance, when I was in a bad relationship all of the problems came to the surface for me to examine when my estrogen was high. At low tide I could very easily pretend everything was okay. It makes perfect sense to me now that I have fashioned a life more suitable to my needs my flashes of clarity show me how to make my life even better. I think this falls into the category of trusting your instincts...something women have been told NOT to do for hundreds of years.
You may be doing the math here and wondering why I am still menstruating at 54. That's a darned good question. I had to give up the hope that my periods will ever end. Each month I would buy the small box of tampons in hopes that this would be the last month. I've been doing that for 4 years and still no dice. My cousin Kathy told me to, "buy the jumbo size box and your periods will stop." Although it made sense in a twisted trial-from-the-gods way it didn't work. So, I've resigned myself to the fact that it may never end. I'm fine with it now although I just wish no one ever told me that someday it would end. It's kind of like telling a kid they are going to Disneyland and then not taking them until they're 30 years old.
Another thing that happened to me since the last time I wrote a hub is I became aware of my vast store of sense memories. I was walking on my lunch hour at Indian School Park when I saw a large flock of mourning doves. They were so pretty as they moved through the warm afternoon looking for food in the grass around the man made fishing hole. I was listening to them coo and all of a sudden I realized that I had the most vivid memory of how they feel. It was so tactile that it nearly knocked me over. I remembered holding a white dove in my hand and gently stroking it with the other hand. I knew how the feathers are smooth and soft to the touch...the way the little feet feel in the palm of my hand and the rapid beating of the tiny heart in the bird's breast. I started to cry and I thought back to other things I have touched...a tiger at a county fair, the neck of a giraffe at the zoo, a frog, a snake, just about anything you can imagine is in my sense memory to be pulled up like Technicolor flash cards. And I came to this world with nothing...not one experience to flip through. I realized if I ever lost my sight or my hearing or my taste I could recreate it with my mind. I was thrown into a kind of rapture that shouldn't happen on your lunch hour...because then, you must go back to work and blot it all out again or the work won't get done. I used to think that if I was in a coma I would want to die but now I have to rethink all of that based on this rich inner life that I realize is possible without stimulus from the outside. What an amazing thing is the mind!
One more thing that I have been mulling over for the past two weeks. My boyfriend has never seen me at my goal weight. The thinnest I have ever been since I met him in 1995 is about 160 lbs. I told him that he may come home one day and think he entered the wrong apartment...he won't be able to recognize me. Being the rational thinker in this couple he retorted, "Well, if it happens gradually don't you think I'd be able to keep up with the changes?" I have news for him. I am not even sure what I will look like at 145 lbs! I might be a size 8 at that weight. What will my face look like? Will my skin's elasticity be able to keep up? Will I look like a half full alligator bag? Yuck. What a thought. I have still not been able to convince myself to start practicing yoga again. Although I did discover something I had not realized...it's not my knee that is preventing me from sitting cross legged on the floor it is the opposite hip. I promised myself that I will get serious about exercising (I AM walking but that is all) when I hit 190 lbs. Don't ask me how I got to that arbitrary figure but it's stuck in my mind so maybe I'll actually do it.
Okay...it is almost 9 p.m. and I need to settle into bed so I can be asleep by 10 and get my solid 8 hours. Goodnight and wish me luck.
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