It's not pretty, but it's not as bad as I feared...

Photo courtesy Emma V Valentine, licensed CC-BY-NC-ND

It was with a considerable degree of trepidation that I faced my nemesis the scale this morning.  After 2 months of eating like a barbarian, I knew there were consequences to be faced.  This was not going to be a quick little blip that was easily overcome.  Nope.  This time I am going to have to face the music and accept the fact that I have backslid and given up literally months of progress.

Yesterday was the first day back on track, and I had a great workout on the treadmill and elliptical machine, followed by a day of excellent healthy food.  I even managed to get my 8 cups of water in.  So far, so good. 

This morning I got up early and faced my new upper body focused weight program.  We had a few rough edges figuring out where to put the weight bench so that there was enough space to do the lifts whilst avoiding knocking the Nerd off the elliptical with the barbell.  I am pleased to report that there were no serious incidents, and we were both able to complete our workouts without major injury. 

This morning I did 3 sets of 10 reps of each of the following: i) military press (30 pounds); ii) barbell upright row (30 pounds); iii) barbell bench press (30 pounds); iv) dumbbell flyes (10 pounds each); v) modified pushups; vi) barbell bent over row (30 pounds); vii) barbell side bend (30 pounds); and viii) situps.  I will do this plan for a week, and then will see about adding reps and/or sets. 

After the weight training I did an hour on the elliptical machine, followed by a nice 5 minute cool-down on the treadmill at a relaxed 2.5 mph pace.  All in all, I felt great after doing what was a pretty intense workout, especially after having been such a slacker for a while.  I am definitely feeling the effects of my C25K workout yesterday, and I expect I will feel this upper body workout tomorrow.  I love the feeling I get when I work out hard - - the muscle soreness tells me that my workouts are shaking my body out of its complacency. 

With the workout finished, it was time for me to step onto the scale and face the music.  And you know what?  It was bad.  But not as bad as I expected.  I thought I was up around 15 pounds, measured after the sodium-tastic craft hot dogs of Saturday night's dinner.  This morning I was "only" up 10.6 pounds, to 199.1 pounds (of course, the word "only" is relative here).  This is still in onederland, still overweight (rather than obese), and not as bad as it could have been.  But it is still 10.6 pounds up from my lowest weight. 

To put it into perspective, I last weighed this much around the end of August.  That's right, I set myself back 4 months with 2 months of poor eating decisions.  In fairness, that's 2 months of creeping up, and 2 months of fighting a holding battle, but it's still 4 months behind where I had been.  So frustrating.

But I have a plan, I have the equipment, and I have run out of patience with my own excuses.  I have recorded this weight on my Fitbit and MyFitnessPal so I am not hiding the fact that I have lost ground.  The good news is that I know I can regain that ground.  It will just take time.  Here's where thing stand as of this morning:

I have 14.1 pounds to go to hit middleweight.  Let's go!

Can't sleep...

I'm lying here in bed, mind running a mile a minute, thinking about all the things I need to do tomorrow at work, thinking about all the things I need to do for me, listening to the freezing rain. Most of all, I am thinking that it's about time I got serious about my health. I'm a 40-something lawyer with too many hours to work and too few hours to sleep, but those are mere excuses.

The truth is that I am morbidly obese. My BMI is off the charts. My blood pressure - amazingly - is normal, the last time I checked. Which wasn't recently because I hate going to doctors and hearing them say: "You know, this [cold] [sore back] [carpal tunnel] would be vastly improved if only you lost weight.". As if losing weight cures all health woes.

I have trouble walking any distance, most days. And by "any distance", I mean "1/2 a block". I'm so physically compromised I calculate my life in increments of what my body will tolerate. I can walk to my office 3 blocks away, if I can stop and stretch out my back after a couple of blocks. I can go to this movie theatre, but not that one, because there the seats are too narrow for me to comfortably sit for any length of time. I take cabs to the courthouse because if I walk, I arrive panting and gasping for breath, and my face is so bright pink that people look at me funny. That, or it's my wheezing that's making them glance over.

I used to love travel, but now dread it. Sure, security since 9-11 is a pain, but it's been years since I comfortably fit in an airplane seat, and I just can't stand the humiliation.

It wasn't always like this. 10 years ago I was a fit and healthy 165 pound size 12/14, 5'9" woman. I could go for long walks without my back seizing up. I didn't get exhausted just getting dressed. I had muscle definition, for gosh sakes. Today...well, let's call me a super-heavyweight trying to cut down to welterweight. I am Butterbean.

This blog will chronicle my efforts at returning to personal fitness, one agonizing step at a time.

Image: Michelle Meiklejohn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net