Fallout girl

So many things to talk about, so little time. There’s not enough hours in the day for me, at least not in this day.

In response to Shauna’s post, I have been inundated with offers from people who want to be my buddy. I’ve gone through a range of thoughts about what to do about this, because as I’ve said before, I really didn’t expect a response at all.

Initially I thought I’d have to turn people down, going by the reasoning that a person can only have one buddy and taking more than one is just being greedy. This was seconded by Mikey, but more for the reason that a person just can’t keep up with more than a few people without getting overwhelmed by it all.

After thinking about it for a while, I decided that this was being a bit unfair to all those people out there who wanted someone to chat to about their own weight loss struggles. Sure, I might not be the best buddy in the world, but when it comes to support and having a virtual shoulder to lean and/or cry on, we all need all the help we can get.

Then comes the realisation that there comes a point where if you accept all offers of buddy-ship, you’re just hogging all the people. And worse than that, you’re not going to be able to give as much to each of them as they are going to give to you – and I really don’t want to be the kind of person who is all take, take, take.

So what to do? I don’t want to be a meanie and say that no new people are allowed into my club, but I’ve got to draw the line somewhere. But what about the rest? What about the people that might still want a buddy? While I love the idea of a website for people to find their “Perfect [Diet] Match” (to quote a new buddy ), I have the coding skills of a kiwifruit and that sort of thing is waaaaaay beyond me. I could possibly do the same thing that Shauna did for me, and put up a little post for people seeking buddies, or people could comment here and post their requirements. Either way, I know it can be a little hard to sort of come out and ask for a buddy. It’s a little like saying “Please like me, someone, anyone…” and that’s tough to say. And tough to sit about afterwards waiting for either the silence of complete rejection or the enthusiasm of others to overwhelm you.

I just called Mikey to ask him about how to go about being the bad guy and his suggestion was that I should run a competition to allow people to win my friendship, which is close to the worst possible thing I can think of, so I guess this way is better.

So here’s the deal: people who’ve emailed me before now to offer themselves up as buddies are in luck, even if I haven’t replied yet because I was away from the computer for pretty much the whole of the long weekend. To those good people who haven’t yet heard back, trust me, you will. I’m a much better keyboard pal than I am a pen pal. And to those who have heard back, you are forever doomed to continue hearing back from me! Muahahahahahahaaaaaa!!

For those people who still want a buddy, I’m offering up my comments section or the offer of an advert, ala DietGirl style, in order to help you find a special someone. I can’t promise it’ll work, but it’s worth a shot.

I’ve spent so much time agonising over what to do about this that I’ve almost run out of work time in which to address the other things I was going to talk about, like what’s happened to that Sure Slim diet thing, and whether Liz is still the love of my life, and whether this whole traipsing towards pregnancy is actually going anywhere. It will all have to wait, because dearest buddies, I have only a few minutes before I have to flee this drab workplace. I have someone inspecting the apartment at 6pm and it’s gotta be pretty and clean and most importantly, desirable.

Time out

This is just a quick post from my dad’s rickety old machine to say hello to all the people who are now dropping by. As I said before, I am awed by all of the comments and kindness from all you good people

I’m in Melbourne for the Australia Day long weekend, staying with my mum, dad, sister and her boyfriend. They all live together in a bizarre symbiotic relationship and I still can’t get used to it or understand it. Anyhow, I’m taking a few days off from the gym (boo!) and replacing it with sweating in the (relative) humidity and relaxing.

The plan is to eat healthily, well as much so as possible, get in a bit of walking around and forget about the stress of trying to sell the house. I almost packed the scale this morning to bring it with me so I could weigh in tomorrow morning, but decided that I could go one week without weighing.

Mikey and I had a great work out at the gym last night and after we’d finished we booked in for PT sessions later next week with Liz. She has requested that we write up a food diary so she can see what we’re eating. It always looks so much worse on paper, doesn’t it? The situation is NOT helped by the fact that there’s left over chocolate from Christmas in the fridge here, and we’re sort of expected to have some, given as how we’re the guests and all!

Of course, if I just came clean and told them all that I was trying to lose weight and had joined the gym, then they’d all be understanding and forbid me from eating any chocolate. At the same time though, I still want them to be amazed when it all comes off, and not bug me too much in the meantime.

Anyhow, I’ll be back on Tuesday, so communications will recommence then! Have a good weekend all, and a great LONG weekend for any Aussies

Holy Moley!

I am completely gobsmacked by the number of comments and emails that I’ve received from such kind visitors. When I first spoke to our wonderful DietGirl about buddies, I had no idea that it would get quite this far. I’m feeling pretty humble right now that so many decent folk felt like taking the time to contact me, and now I’m going to do my best to get back to people in a timely fashion. And if that means not doing any real work today, so be it!

I also didn’t do any real work yesterday – instead I took the day off to do some tasks that needed doing. Mikey and I went off to Kmart to find me pants and instead ended up with me being emotional because once again there was nothing I wanted to buy. Even the size 18 pants weren’t a good fit for me, and the sight of me in the mirror trying to do up the zips on clothing that clearly didn’t want to hold in my belly was too much for me.

We ended up at the gym instead, where we managed to convince the sign up man to give Mikey the same good deal that they gave me when I signed up two weeks ago, minus the two weeks free bit. Now we’ve got a matching set of Fitness First branded gym gear – backpacks, shoe bags, water bottles and hats that are too big for me and too small for him.

I also introduced Mikey to the other love of my life, Liz. He was so impressed with her energy (she ran on a nearby treadmill for the entire time we were sitting about getting deals on sign up prices) that he decided to take a cheap three pack for personal training with her. So we’re both feeling motivated and sporty now. Not sporty enough to get out of bed and go to the gym before work this morning, as we’d intended, but still, it’s a good start.

*****

One of the things that I’m loving about going to the gym and doing a proper workout, aside from the pleasant burn during and afterwards, is the discoveries I’m making about my body. While walking down the stairs yesterday morning in shorts, I noticed a teensy bit of muscle appearing just above my knee.

“Look!” I called to Mikey, “I have thigh muscles!!!”

I’ve also started making him put his finger on my biceps while I straighten and bend my elbow (I don’t do real flexes because I feel like a fraud). “Feel that power!” I’ll say proudly.

Then this morning, when I was getting dressed, I thought that maybe my inner thighs are getting a little thinner and rubbing less on each other. I woke Mikey up to ask him if he agreed. It should be noted here that I’ve previously asked him not to bullshit me about muscle or weight loss, and only tell me the truth about my belly or my bum or whatever. After he’d agreed that my thighs were getting more toned, he then started to stumble.

Mikey: Your bum’s the biggest thing -

Pia: *glare*

M: I mean the thing that’s showing more -

P: *scowl*

M: Wow, that all sounds so wrong. I meant the part of you that’s showing the most that it’s getting smaller.

You’ve gotta love him – at least he’s trying

We then went on to discuss how my bra was getting a bit floppy at the top, whereas when he was taking photos of me in it a few months back, it was much more filled. Now we have a record of my partial loss of boobs.

“See,” he said, “it’s a good thing that I’m a pervert!”

Na na na na na na na na FAT PANTS!

On the weekend I went clothes shopping with Mikey to buy a new pair of work pants. In this endeavour, I was completely unsuccessful. The reason I didn’t buy any work pants was simple. While I don’t have a problem with going to the fat people section of Target and Big W (I’m a tight arse when it comes to buying clothes), I do have a problem with the complete lack of fashion afforded to larger folk. Almost all of the pants had an elastic waist and they all looked hideous. Not only that, but the fat pants were limited to scratchy, nasty synthetic material, unlike the more stylish and comfortable material that the “normal” pants were made of. Basically my refusal to buy pants was based on my indignation that these stores would try to make me wear ugly pants.

It seems like the stores are, perhaps unintentionally, suggesting that the sort of people who wear larger sizes are either a. not fussed by the lack of style or smooth material or b. aren’t going to be looked at by anyone else, so it won’t matter what they wear. That sort of thing makes me angry, and helps fuel my weight loss desires. I want to fit back into the nice pants – and I’m close enough for it to be frustrating. Target classifies size 16 as the top of the “normal” range for most of their pants, and I just happen to be a size 18. Mikey said I could fit into the 16s and they’d actually look quite good, but I thought they were just too snug around the waist. Fitted waists I can cope with, but not being sliced in half when I take a deep breath. Besides, I’d never be able to drink or eat anything with those pants on without fearing a zipper incident.

I would have let my outrage at the crappy fat pants carry me straight out of those stores, but Big W had quite a good sale on their fitness clothing, so instead I picked up a couple of pairs of shorts and three quarter length pants for the gym, as well as an ultra cool sweat wicking shirt in bright red, which matched my face nicely when I went to the gym on Sunday afternoon!

Perhaps I’ll be able to make do with one pair of work pants and dresses and jeans until I’ve lost enough flab from my thighs and waist to fit neatly into a size 16. I really don’t want to pay loads of money for a transitional pair of pants, because once this weight is off, I’m planning never to let it creep back again.

I vant to suck your blooood!

This morning I went to see a doctor to get myself a blood test to check for ovulation. It should have been simple, but the doctor I saw (not my usual, just a random one assigned by the receptionist when I made the appointment last week) had no idea what I was talking about.

I said I wanted to get a blood test done to confirm whether I had indeed ovulated eight days ago, as indicated by my temperature chart, and she said there was no such thing. Without the trusty internet, I couldn’t persuade her that I was right, especially as she told me that that particular clinic doesn’t deal with subfertility issues.

I decided to bite the bullet then and ask for a referral to a fertility specialist, which she was happy to give me. Then she sent me off for a gazillion tests, on the premise that I’d need to get them done for the specialist to look at. The tests range from simple girl hormones to prolactin, testosterone and a test for PCOS. I’m to go back in two weeks to collect the results, and once that is done, I can call the specialist and get myself and Mikey looked at.

Interestingly enough, one of the things she wanted tested was my progesterone levels – which is exactly what they test for in an ovulation confirmation test. Silly doctor. On a related note, I’m kinda happy that they call it subfertility and not infertility. This makes me feel a little better, a little more positive anyhow.

According to my FF chart, I ought to test for pregnancy next Friday, 11 days from now. The website suggests testing 16-18 days after ovulation, because I haven’t been charting for long enough for it to accurately determine your usual cycle length and luteal phase. Based on my little brain calendar, my period is due just after that, so by the time the results are ready to be collected, I’ll know whether we need to go to the specialist or not.

Week 4

Me and my yoyo weight. Another fluctuation this week, although this one puts me at my lightest since starting. Yay for me.

Saturday 19 January, 2008

Week 4 weight – 95.6 kg

Initial weight – 96.2 kg

That’s a bit of a non-event really. At least my scales come up with the same result as the old fashioned clunky ones at the gym. Well, close enough – they said I’m at 96 kg.

Liz did my assessment on Saturday at lunch time. It was a lot less scary than I expected it to be – or maybe that’s just because Liz is such a great personal trainer (and dare I say it, person in general) that she doesn’t make me feel bad about my failings, instead she tells me that it’s just the start.

She took all my measurements – height (166cm – I made her do it twice to be sure!), upper and mid thighs, calves, upper arms (flexed and limp – it seems that I have 1cm of muscle on each arm. Go me!!!), waist, hips and something to do with my shoulder blades, although she was behind me so I couldn’t tell. Then we did the fat pincers and the oxygen efficiency rating or whatever it’s called. Once again, the screen on the exercise bike told us that my use of oxygen was very poor. Liz told me that wasn’t the worst you could get and I joked that perhaps for the even less fit the screen would say “go get a doctor” or “measure up a coffin”.

Oh, and not only is Liz an awesome chick and I want to impress her more than I want to impress my husband, but she’s also got a great taste in music! We had a lengthy talk about gigs we’d been to and bands we liked, and she even suggested that next time someone cool is playing in Canberra, we should go!! I think I have a new girl crush.

My first proper PT session is tomorrow morning at 7am. I’m really looking forward to it, if for no other reason than because I want to make Liz proud by being able to complete whatever workout she sets me without complaining that I’m going to throw up!

Bip bip

So, did I go to the gym last night to work off my furious anger?

No, I did not. Instead I went home, called my mother and cried to her for a while.

I am making up for not going yesterday by going twice today! Went to pilates at lunchtime, and I’ll be heading back at 4 to do my weights and cardio thing. Then tomorrow I have my assessment with Liz at 12. There’s a Body Balance class at 10:30, so I was thinking I’d go in for that, then relax for 30 minutes and then see Liz.

Now let’s see whether I can stick to that! Here’s hoping this is a fit and healthy weekend for me

Avoidance

I’m having a particularly lousy day today. I got to work really late because my appointment at the hairdresser went overtime. Seven hours later and I’m still not sure about the haircut I received. For the first time in years, I have a fringe – a sort of angled thing to give me softness and get rid of a little bulk around my face. Before this, I’ve avoided the fringe, because they’re a bitch to maintain and later grow out. All I wanted was to grow my hair out, so the plan was to get regular trims of the very back, until all of the top was the same length. Now that I’m going to the gym and need to tie my hair up, I can’t afford to lose an inch or more off the back, so we went with the fringe instead. Maybe I’ll like it better tomorrow.

Then this morning a colleague came up to me and said she’d been chatting with an ex-colleague about me, and that I really ought to send the ex-colleague an email. I felt like I was being chastised for not keeping in touch – but really, it’s only a week since I last contacted her on facebook. Besides, if said ex-colleague was so keen to chat, she could contact me! My sister did the same thing to me before Christmas, telling me to call the parents more often, instead of only when there’s something going on. I’ve done as she told me to, calling them on a weekly basis, but when there’s nothing happening, it seems like a bit of a waste, cos there’s nothing really to talk about. I guess it’s just my reaction to being told what to do.

Then I entered in my last 10 or so days worth of temp charting into fertility friend. I can’t be bothered entering data every day, so I write it all down on a piece of paper, and then do it as a batch. Once I’d finished, the graph showed that I ovulated on Sunday. Four days ago. Without me knowing.

I’ve gotten so focussed on the gym that I wasn’t paying any attention to the trying to conceive thing, and now I realise that Mikey and I probably missed this window. Sure, we did the deed during the right time, but it was only once… Too much information, I know. I’m annoyed and sad, because I really do want this to happen. I saw my previous supervisor the other day with her husband. She’s due in June and has a rounded belly. She’s also 38. I’m not even going to go into how I feel about the fact that she’s ten years older than me and managed to fall pregnant. It’s just silly, and not really worthy of me at all.

The bonus of not getting pregnant now is that the wedding is in nine months and 10 days from today. Falling pregnant right now would make for a very uncomfortable wedding, methinks.

About an hour ago, I discovered that my favourite work pants have split down the back seam. A week or so ago I heard them split the outer of the two seams when I was doing a silly stretch while talking on the phone at home. Apparently, my butt knows no limits though, and has burst through the inner seam. This is a problem because I only have two pairs of work pants right now. Looks like I’ll be trudging off to Target or Big W or somewhere similar tomorrow after work to see what I can find for cheap. I didn’t want to buy clothes at all while I’m losing weight, it just seems like such a waste when I might not get to wear them for too long. I can’t survive on one pair of black pants though. I’m far too messy and tend to spill things on myself for that sort of carry on.

I’m also grizzly because Mikey and I had a fight on the phone over whether I had to go to the gym today. I just wanted a day off because I feel blah, but he said that that was exactly why I ought to go. Ended up with me saying I wasn’t going to go home any time soon, even though I’m tired and feel ill, because I didn’t want to be with him right now. So I’m stuck here at work until I either get over my anger or my pride.

Bah!

Maybe I should just go to the gym. It’s almost 6. The crowds that arrive at 5 might have died down a little. Those crowds are part of the reason I didn’t want to go. Getting to work late meant I couldn’t go to the gym at 4, when I’ve been going. I like going at 4, because it means that I’m all done and ready to leave by the time everyone else gets there. It saves me from waiting around for the equipment to be free and gives me less of a reason to worry that people are looking at my ginormous buttocks.

Still, maybe this fight happened for a reason, to help me get over my paranoia of being looked at. Plus, going to the gym now means that it’ll be another hour and a half before I have to talk to Mikey, which gives me an extra 90 minutes to get over being pissed off at him.

Introduction gushiness

Now that the weighing post is over, I want to gush about a brand new person who has entered my life like a miniature whirlwind. She’s slender, blonde, 4′11″ and contains the energy of at least 14 overly excited puppies. Her name is Liz, and she’s my first ever personal trainer.Last week, when I signed up, I was given the opportunity to avail myself of a free PT session. I booked in for a session on Monday, figuring that I’d get shown around the gym and pointed towards the various machines with a brief description of what they did. With that in mind, I opted for the 11am session. I wasn’t gonna get sweaty or anything, so I could safely take an early lunch and then head back to work without having to have a shower at the gym.

WELL!

I clearly hadn’t thought about this hard enough.

Liz met me as I was coming out of the change rooms and then proceeded to put me through the most gruelling workout I’ve done in many, many years. Perhaps the hardest workout ever.

First there was five minutes on the bike, to see how my oxygen usage was. Very poor was the response, not surprisingly, although I did manage to hold a conversation at the same time as cycling to nowhere at somewhere between 60 and 80 RPM.

Then five minutes on elliptical cross trainer, all the while bitching about how I hated that type of machine because the last person to make me use one made me run backwards on it. By this time, I’d worked up quite a sweat, that is to say I was sweating like a pig.

Then we moved onto resistance training. When I write it like that, it feels like getting ready for guerrilla warfare. At the end of the hour, my body felt like it had been pummelled and broken, so the analogy is fairly apt.

My workout involved stuff for my legs, back, chest, shoulders and arms – seated leg press, seated row, chest press, shoulder press, triceps press – all on funky machines, and then biceps using a barbell with teensy weights. Initially we started at 2 sets of 12 reps, but after telling Liz that I was going to throw up, she eased off a bit, at least on the shoulder press. Everything else I had to do 3 sets of at least 10 reps.

Then it was a five minute brisk walk on the treadmill, set to hilly as a cool down, then some stretches to finish up. By the end, I was actually feeling pretty good. Knackered, but good.

Liz suggested that I might want to organise some sessions with her in order to push myself and achieve my goals of weight loss and fitness before I leave. I was hesitant, due to the money issue, but it turns out that because she’s new at this particular gym, her fees are quite a bit lower than the usual PT prices. I used the standard line about discussing it with the husband, and dragged my sweaty sorry butt into the change room.

I ended up going home quite early from work, because I still felt a bit off – more tired than ill, and I didn’t like the sweaty feeling. I needed a shower, STAT!

Mikey and I had a chat about it and agreed that I’d get more out of this gym thing if I was being pushed by Liz and pushing myself to impress her, than if I was doing it on my own. And at $65 per session, I figured it was worth it, although given the tight finances, cutbacks WILL BE MADE! Maybe in the form of no more nutella.

As a weird aside, until now, I never really had much of a thing for nutella. When I first came to Canberra, the supermarket near my college was selling nutella in glasses with superheroes printed on the outside. There were eight glasses to make up a set. I bought them over a few weeks and then sold the nutella from inside the jar to a friend, because I didn’t want to eat it, I just wanted the cool drinking glasses.

I still have two of the glasses – Robin and The Green Lantern. The others have been broken over the years, but seeing as TGL was my favourite (with all his rippling muscles), I didn’t really care.

Returning from the nutella tangent, I went back to the gym on Tuesday at 4 and tried to repeat the workout that Liz had put me through. I pretty much managed the whole thing, and this time without feeling like I was going to reveal my unhealthy starbucks lunch to the whole gym. Just before I left, I caught up with Liz, who was finishing up a workout with her own PT (personal trainers can have personal trainers of their own – who knew??), and mentioned that I’d be taking her up on the PT sessions.

She voiced her enthusiasm in her excitable way and signed me up for a free assessment on Saturday at noon, where I’ll get my skin folds done and all the rest of the medical stuff done, and then I’ll have my program written up to start for my first “proper” session on Tuesday at 7am.

Squee! How exciting! I really like Liz’s enthusiasm – it helps me to feel like this is actually a pretty impressive and exhilarating adventure that I’m embarking on! 

Liz says good things, not just baseless flattery but useful things that make me feel good, about how I’ve got the potential to be really strong in my legs, and how this workout will help get my metabolism up so I’ll be burning fat for longer. Her actual words were “burning fat for three days”, but I’m not raising my hopes on that one, because of the seven meats pizza that I ate half of for dinner last night.

She’s pushy, but at the same time she can see when I’m really struggling and need a breather but isn’t fooled when I’m just whinging cos I’m lazy.

I really hope the rest of my time with her is as positive as the first session. I’m really looking forward to getting down and sweaty – and trust me, I never though I’d say that!

I’m heading in to do another workout this afternoon, even though my thighs and triceps are still screeching like rusty hinges when I stand up after sitting for a while at my desk. It’s funny, but that pain is almost addictive. I know it’s only early days yet, but I want to keep up the pain, keeping it going because it tells me that I’m actually doing something.

It reminds me of when I used to poke my bruises, except that this is more useful, and ultimately much less disturbing for onlookers.

Week 3

I’m a bad Pia! So slack! Too slack to post a weigh in for Saturday until now. To be fair to myself though, I have a couple of good reasons.

Firstly, I’ve been going to the gym (more on that later) and so when I’m at home I’m buggered and don’t feel like typing, and when I’m at work I’m either working (duh) or reading my latest favourite set of web comics. Secondly, I decided to make a concession to be able to afford the gym – I downgraded my broadband plan at home from 40GB to 10GB, so I can’t really do as much messing about on the internet at home as I used to, which means no posting from home.

Anyhow, enough justification, and on with the weigh in. This week was a bad one. I gained weight, but I completely deserved to – I ate approximately half a jar of nutella (or rather the Italian version called Nutino) and did no real exercise, other than the pilates class on Friday.

Saturday 12 January, 2008

Week 3 weight – 96.2 kg

Initial weight – 96.2 kg

Muahahaha!! I’ve managed to get back to where I was when I started. The funny thing is, every time I jump on the scale now, the electronic digits waver briefly at 96.0 and then plonk straight onto 96.2 and flash at me. It’s like the scales have decided that that is how much I weigh and it refuses to show me anything different.

Not really. When I got home after the gym last night, Mikey suggested I jump on the scales. I said it wasn’t a good idea, seeing as I’d just filled up with a litre of water, and lo, the scales said 96.8, so I know they aren’t truly fixed. But I’m not really fretting about my weight at the moment – too busy fixating on the agony of my thighs and triceps. I’ll keep on weighing every Saturday and reporting back here, but I’m not worried by what the scales say right now.