this PHOTO

I love this photo. I love Sophia Loren! Maybe I'll watch one of her movies this weekend. The only one I ever honestly remember watching is "Grumpy Old Men." But this photo.. THIS PHOTO!! What is shocking is that *my own body* resembles that of the woman in this photo! My friend posted this picture on FaceBook with some quote attributed to Sophia Loren, which everyone on the interwebs refuted. But honestly, this photo needs no quote attached. Just look at this woman - bellissima!!

So this hasn't been the best week, re-entry to the real world after the EuroTrip has been HARD. I am happy to say that... work is actually better. A nice long vacation certainly helps you appreciate that the crap you deal with on a daily basis can provide you with stellar life experiences. So, there's that. But getting back into the crap you deal with on a daily basis? DIFFICULT. I went off the rails for two days - TWO WHOLE DAYS, DAMMIT. Totally wish I had this stress-eating thing licked, but I don't, and that's OK I'm back on the wagon and I'll just move on. I'm up 0.8 lbs according to WW scale. And, speaking of the scale...

I did not want to weigh in this morning. I really didn't. I went and I even TOLD the girl checking me in that I didn't want to, and she offered up the "no weigh-in" option to me. But I said 'nope, it's just a number.' And I stepped on the scale, it was up 0.8, I enjoyed the meeting and ran in to Target before work. And then I came and got to work. So that's what 'carrying on with the generally healthy life I've been living' looks like.

I've set a goal to be down 6 pounds by Halloween. Again, a number, and not that I'm focusing on it but it will give something to progress toward. No worries if I don't hit it. I can't believe it is FALL, already.

Happy Friday, friends.

Significant (post EuroTrip)

I have just returned from an incredible EuroTrip that started off with a week in Paris, a day trip touring the champagne town of Reims, a train ride to Milan, a few days on Lake Como, an excursion to Parma-Reggio-Modena, a few days in Umbria including a visit to the city of Assisi (as in, St. Francis thereof) and then 2 days in Rome. I was with friends, I met up with old friends, boyfriend and I had a spectacular few days of just the two of us driving around Italy and I got to visit my favorite place in the world once more. It was a magical, magical trip.

There are millions of great photos from that trip. The one I’m posting here is not one of them – however, it may be the best photo of my weight loss journey. My whole goal before the trip started was to lose enough weight to look good in the pictures. You can see my backside in this one… and for the first time ever, I don’t hate how I look. I think I look great, and like a NORMAL HUMAN BEING. And in most of the other photos taken on this trip, I really love how I look. It has taken such a long time for me to do the work and GET THERE, and also to get where my head is in this space of being positive about my appearance.

There is a story behind the jeans I am wearing in this photo. They are called “The Dreamer” by the manufacturer; it is sewn on the inside of the waistband. I have kept them high up on a shelf in my closet for a very long time. Every once in a while I’d pull them down and try them on thinking ‘Maybe this time?’ but I was always met with too much resistance to zip them up. I’d quickly fold them back up and think they were appropriately named, as I was just DREAMING I would fit into them. Well, before the trip as I was looking for the clothes I wanted to take, I went through that same routine of pulling them down off the shelf ‘just to see.’ And this time… they zipped up, and they fit perfectly! They were the best fitting pair of jeans I owned, so they went on the trip with me and they are the ones I was wearing in this photo. I turned my dream into a reality!

One other thing that is significant – being away and completely off any routine for almost three weeks, not tracking and not making 100% good choices, I returned to reality only one pound heavier than when I left (according to my bathroom scale this morning). I do feel a bit “puffy” not having done weights for so long but I’m excited about heading to the gym after work to rectify that situation. I give myself credit for making *pretty good* choices the whole time I was gone and I also got a lot of activity walking for hours each day. I’m super happy that I can go away and have a great time and basically maintain my weight – that is a FEAT and GO, ME!!

begin again

This morning I had the girls at WW change my starting weight to my original start weight, 208.2. Man. I can't believe I was ever that heavy. I was actually heaviER before I went to my first meeting, I had lost 10 or 15 pounds on my own before I got up the guts to walk in the door. And here I am 10 years later still down almost 30 pounds. Go, me.

My week was interesting. DH and I have been together for a total of 8 years. We started dating as the 2008 Summer Olympics were starting. We spent our anniversary volunteering for a triathlon, and as timing would have it we were driving from our volunteer post back into town and police stopped traffic just shy of a big crowd of people, flashing lights and bicyclists. As we waited, an ambulance showed up and stopped about 30 yards ahead to pick up an athlete who crashed on her bike. We watched as they put her on a stretcher - her legs were moving, which was a good thing because at least she wasn't totally broken or paralyzed, but what a terrible way to have your race interrupted. The ambulance left the scene and traffic slowly resumed. As we rolled by the site of the crash there was a LOT of blood on the pavement, along with some "stuff" - which could be anything - bike gloves, bandages, whatever... it was gross. DH commented on the amount of blood. I know you can lose a LOT of blood and be fine, so I was happy that I had seen her legs moving while she was on the stretcher. We rolled on into town and met our friends for breakfast. Then the rumors started... hit and run (not true)... not enough police officers (not true) or traffic volunteers (possibly true)... and then we found out she died - TRUE.

And the image of the blood and the stuff I had seen on the pavement was burnished into my brain.

I spent a fairly obsessive six hours researching the girl, the scene, the stories that were coming out on Facebook and online. And I came to the conclusion that there was no way it would have been a hit-and-run, with the number of witnesses and police in the area. I also realized that there was no way some car would have crossed all those cones into a bike lane FULL of cyclists, this rider must have ventured outside the cones and into traffic. As it turns out, both my conclusions were true. The man driving the truck stayed on scene and cooperated fully with officers. The girl on the bike did indeed veer into the traffic lane, was struck by the vehicle and run over as she went down. What a horrible, horrible accident. I was relieved to hear it was rider error rather than DRIVER error, but at the same time clearly I wish it had not happened at all.

In any case, I spent a lot of Sunday evening eating. And eating. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great. I was over my points for the day. I knew I was doing it because I was racked with that image and the fear that OH MY GOD I RIDE ON THE ROAD HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN DURING A RACE WHAT AM I DOING DO I NEED TO GIVE UP BIKING WTF WTF WTF and so I just ate. Some crackers. Some cheese. Some potato salad. Fruit. A brownie. More crackers. I ended up about 10 points over. C'est la vie. I knew what I was doing, acknowledged it and kept on going, but righted my ship on Monday.

Then a friend wants to throw a (good) wrench into our upcoming Euro-trip, so I spent time on the phone with her about how to hash that out with another friend... and then there was work drama, and I also had to prepare for a job interview (which I have no idea how it went but the hiring manager did seem very happy to see me today, so... good?) and then I was on the phone for an hour with my sister talking about all the things that happened in her life (major, major things which are good but a LOT to digest) so... it's a miracle I got even one workout in. But I got 2. And today it will be 3. And I tracked everything and made it to my meeting. So, go me.

At the meeting I had them update my weight to my correct starting weight. So even though I have posted a gain this week (likely due to the tomato sauce I ate at dinner last night) I am -29.2 overall. Seriously awesome. And it's a new week. I am totally ready to put all the drama from last week behind me and just begin again.

Happy Friday, friends!

you look amazing

Five people have told me this in the past two weeks. I am trying my darnedest to agree with them. It is HARD for me to wrap my head around You Look Like a Normal Human Being when, for most of my life, I was overweight and even obese.

I have been trying to bike, swim and lift weights regularly. I have been trying to eat less crap (and I'm pretty successful at that, 95% of the time). I have been trying to acknowledge what I love about this spectacular disease-free body I inhabit. And by trying, what is happening is that I am ACTUALLY DOING that stuff, and tracking, too! And the DOING is definitely getting results.

There have been a few incidents of too many chips or too many drinks or a skipped workout. But those are rare and OKAY when they happen. I actually started to sort of freak myself out on Friday because I was really exhausted and went to bed late on Thursday night, and getting up for a workout seemed like the last thing I wanted to do because I was over-tired. So I decided the best thing I could do for myself was get some rest - and I slept in. And I felt amazing when I woke up! I consciously chose to get rest rather than workout, and guess what happened next? I moved on with the day like a normal human being. I didn't beat myself up. I acknowledged that I FELT BETTER because after last week I really did need the rest.

So I'm doing what I need to do, and if the scale isn't moving that's OK because the comments on how I look are coming freely. I think it's great that others are noticing and I like their comments, but the only person whose acceptance I really need is MY OWN. And I am working diligently on that. I can say my legs look great, my shoulders look great, I look like a normal person (maybe even a slightly muscular woman?) in recent photos I have seen of myself. I love riding my bike. I love going to the pool. I love the results that weight training gets me. I love chocolate cake and pizza, and I still eat eat both but in moderation and I truly do not feel deprived.

This is happening, people... and the person I have to convince THE MOST that they do indeed look amazing is myself, but THAT is happening, too! :)

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Pic is DH and I at a wedding last weekend. He's one of the five people who commented!!! 

dogs and cats, living together, MASS HYSTERIA....

So. I do this thing where I think something bad is happening (usually something bad IS actually happening) and then my mind thinks that I am the CAUSE of this bad thing (usually I am NOT the cause of Bad Thing, just a witness to it) and then my mind takes itself on a joyride that just SNOWBALLS really really quickly and suddenly the bad thing is a terrible thing is a horrible crippling soul-sucking mass-destruction-inflicting THING that I have created (but in reality, I have NOT created it) and now I - and everyone near me - cannot escape.

This is destructive. And exhausting. And definitely not good for me nor those who are close to me. Luckily I've had some counseling around this, so I do have some tools but sometimes, man, that joyride just starts and I'm on it, even though I definitely don't want to be.

So that is what happened on Sunday. And I figured it out fairly quickly, so the carnage was minimal. But, there was carnage. I had to do a lot of apologizing - to myself, to my husband, to my doggy love who was nice enough to stick rightbymyside the whole time because he knew I was upset. (Actually doggy love needs no apologies, he just got lots of free pets. But still, I felt badly as he followed me around.) And I felt really silly because even though Bad Thing happened, the resulting fallout was purely a ridiculous incident of my own creation.

As this Bad Thing was happening, I didn't work out, I didn't track, and today the scale is up and I'm sad I let that happen. I am sure it will go down some, but a three-day detour is not really great for getting to my goals. This type of terrible thinking is definitely something I need to learn to deal with a little more quickly - I'm working on that.

I can't remember the last time I let my head take it to a completely unwarranted DEFCON-5 type of level and I really hope it doesn't happen again anytime soon. My saving grace about this episode is that I recognized it for what it was within a few hours (as opposed to the DAYS it usually takes me to figure out what's really going on). But even so, I still self-destructed and it took a while to clean up the chaos and get myself back on track - in several areas of my life, not just with weight loss. Today I'm back and I think it's important that I at least acknowledge that a) this happened and b) I'm getting better about dealing with it and c) I've still got work to do - but I can, will, and AM doing that work.

Keep on keepin' on, friends. :)

the fog

It's not everywhere, but it is definitely over "there" a lot. My job is the city, shrouded in fog but just like this photo, it's beautiful over in Sausalito. I'll be fine if I can keep in mind that it's usually foggier in the city, and remember not to spend too much time there.

Doing a lunchtime ride today... kind of my very own day trip to Sausalito. ;)

Colorado BikeMS

I did half of the Colorado BikeMS 2-day ride this weekend. 66 miles on a bike, which I believe is my farthest distance yet, by one mile! It was a really fun ride, very well supported and I was with lots of friends. I forgot how much fun it was to ride with other people!

I love this photo of me at the finish. I was really happy with how I did. It was just a beautiful, fun day and I had a really nice ride. And then when I finally looked at the pics, I couldn't believe how overweight I looked in all of them - until I saw this one, and I was like "Oh my gosh, is that really ME? How did you make me look so thin in it?!?!"

So. Yeah. The ride was easy. Truly, I barely felt like I was trying. Totally could have ridden back the second day, but was happy to just hang out with Mr. Blueberry Pancakes for a few hours.

There's a lot of life stress going on at the moment. It sort of led me to make poor decisions on Saturday, despite my major bike ride. In the end I did ok. I did recognize it as it happened, and started tracking, and moved on with better decisions overall. It is amazing how much you can eat if you aren't paying attention. For a little bit, I consciously chose not to pay attention, but I don't want to do that anymore.

I'm so happy I did this ride, and I can't wait to do it again next year!