Friday, March 23, 2012

Post-game wrap-up - and the truth in numbers


I really have been trying Ruffian's patience lately with how long it takes to get the baby taken care of and getting everything ready for our walks these days!

This was Clio's first ride in the Snugli... I think she was 3 or 4 days old and I managed to hobble for about 20 minutes on the path behind the house.
Well... Fat Mary is back fatter than ever - but I can't say that I'm too awfully upset about it.  Anybody who followed me on Facebook knows that I got pretty pissed off throughout my pregnancy by the midwives telling me I was gaining too much weight and referring me to a nutritionist as if I was some sort of uneducated slob or something... but in the end, my baby turned out very healthy, I have plenty of booby milk for her, and besides being heavy, I'm in fairly decent shape.  Clio is 3 weeks old today and I have gone on 2 runs with Ruffy and am doing 50 pushups in a minute (10 of those being "real"... the rest on my knees)... I'm also having no problems lifting upperbody but definitely had to back-off on lunges and squats and anything else that feels like it might be pulling on my stitches.

I stayed active throughout my pregnancy... I ran a 5K at 10 minute mile pace at 23/24 weeks and was able to do a few pullups the whole time... so getting chided by my medical staff about losing weight when i was the only hugely pregnant woman I ever saw working out as hard as I did really stuck in my craw.  One of the best things I did was invest in a private swim coach for a couple of sessions on improving my stroke efficiency.  I had been frustrated in the past that no matter how much training I did in the pool, I couldn't seem to get as fast as I thought my fitness merited... then I got some coaching and learned that my stroke was completely back-asswards!  With the help of my coach and watching the "Total Immersion" training video and applying those exercises, I can now say that I have a competent swimming style.  I was still swimming the week Clio was born and all my time in the water saved my aching joints and my sanity!  I think I was swimming my mile at 40 weeks pregnant about as fast as I did before I got my lessons... I just had to give up the flip turn late in the game.  I did one the Monday before Clio was born and I have to say that I'm not sure if my Lats had ever worked that hard flipping my 200 lb + completely round body around.

OK - so maybe I ate a few too many cupcakes and a little too much ice cream over the past couple of months... but it wasn't because I didn't know better... it was because my back hurt, I was bored because of my immobility, and I just was not into weight loss mode... I tried calorie counting a few times... but having that much self discipline and still seeing the number on the scale increase just was too demotivational to give a rat's ass about what I weighed.  I don't see how a damn nutritionist would have changed that... but I think one of the things I'm going to work on in the future is having enough self confidence to accept people's criticism without letting it affect my feelings so much. 

I think the reason the criticism about my weight frustrated me so much is that I have weighed more than the medical or BMI "experts" have had as their "ideal" for as long as I can remember.  I had this palsied jerk of a doctor at Dover tell me that I needed to lose weight badly at 156 lbs (clothes on...) because fitness was important in the Air Force (let's not mention that I scored a 96% on my fitness test the day before and had placed pretty well in a "Crossfit" sectional competition qualifying for the regional championships at that weight, easily stringing together 25 or so pullups at a time) and that a person my height should weigh a maximum of 135 lbs... How did this person pass medical school... ?  I admit that 156 is about 10-15 lbs heavier than what i would consider a "fighting weight" for me and that I had been indulging in too much beer and cheese since meeting my Wisconsinite husband... but here are two pictures of myself at 140 lbs-ish -



Anybody who would tell the girl in these pictures that she is "overweight" because she is not under 135 lbs is an idiot... but because of BMI charts and people like that doctor with their ridiculous opinions stated as fact about what people should weigh... I had some pretty awful body image issues even back when these pictures were taken.  I constantly hated myself for not weighing 120-130 lbs and looking back today I can't believe how miserable I could feel looking as good as I obviously did at that time.  I practically had anxiety attacks every time I had to step on a scale!  Ridiculous... but that's not going to happen anymore.  I think the main reason I am writing this blogpost is to be upfront and out of the closet as far as what I weigh because I have always had such an unhealthy shame about it.  I remember in 5th grade, I was about 5 feet tall and weighed 105 lbs and my dad and uncle got on to me and I think my dad said something like "I weighed 105 lbs when I was a freshman in high school"!  Not that my dad and uncle are hateful or mean people... but I remember that moment to this day and having tears running down my face running into another room and doing a zillion situps.  Who cared if I could run faster or jump higher than anyone else in my class?  Not cool!  I have never been comfortable letting other people know how much I weigh since then... but that's changing today... I guess all the "Biggest Loser" reruns I'm watching while Clio nurses is getting to me.

Me getting ready to gag on Inka Kola... incidently, I weighed around 150 lbs in this picture... Haha... truth... so liberating.
So... here is the number I saw on the scale this morning... 178.6 lbs.  My goal is to weigh 140 lbs.  I have to go back to work in 8 weeks... I would like to have a good dent in those 38.6 lbs the next time I have to put on business clothes...  I also have an Air Force PT test coming up... my waist needs to be under 31" for that and I also need to run my 1.5 mile in under 10:50... I think those are also good goals.  Other athletic goals are to run a half marathon in under 2 hours this year and find a way to start climbing again so I can enjoy some of the good areas within driving distance.  I'm sure my goals will evolve as I progress.  I need to remember that watching my diet is probably more important in weight loss than exercise and be on a journey to enjoy food without overindulging.

Most importantly, though, I want to be comfortable in my skin and be a good role model for my little girl and other little girls (or little boys or big girls and boys) who shouldn't have to grow up with weight and body-image issues, be a confident person going into my new jobs (will have to blog about those later - but life on the career front is super exciting right now!), and enjoy every minute vs. waiting for some milestone before I feel like I can allow myself to be happy.