Sometimes I Think About What Happens After Goal Weight

The other day I was reading an interview with a transgender woman about her transition, and something in it struck a particular chord with me. Nora lives in the Netherlands, where the state will pay for everything, but there are a tremendous amount of meetings, counseling, therapy, waiting periods, etc, involved in the transition process. Much of these meetings focused on what Nora wanted to do with her life after becoming a woman - everything from hobbies to career goals, to love and friendships. What were her plans, what was her support system?

She explained, “You spend your youth wishing you could live your life as a woman, but once you accomplish that goal, you then have to actually go out and live your life as a woman. That's not the end of a story -- it's the beginning of one.”

Obviously my situation is very different from Nora’s, but what she said there really struck me, and I think there can be some interesting parallels. Really, her words can apply to any big accomplishment or event - finishing a game of Risk, getting married, taking that trip, whatever.

How often does something like this happen? You plan and you work and you try for months or years, and then you finally do it. You’re married, you’re living as your preferred gender, you’ve gotten to your goal weight. Then what?

How much time and energy have I spent on my weight? Planning diets, reading tips, staring at the scale, even blogging here? How many of my waking hours are spent thinking about the type and amount of food that will enter my mouth? (Ha, you didn’t think I’d say ‘mouth!)

That’s something to remember. After I lose all this weight, there will probably be some new clothes and an enormous amount of celebrating and creating before/after jpg that I not-so-secretly hope will go viral. But then eventually life will go on at this new weight. At some point, I might have more people in my life who have only even known me at 140 pounds or whatever than people who remember my 190-pound existence. Isn’t that weird?

There are already people who’ve never known the me that was looking for a post-grad job forever, or the me that was really depressed, or the me that had [opinion] on [controversial topic] that’s now done a 180.

We all keep creating different versions of ourselves, and with each new person that we meet in life, there’s one more person who has no idea who we were before they met us. I found out that a girl I was friendly with was a semi-famous violinist. I’d hung out and talked to her at least 20 times, but had no idea. She had this huge skill, these amazing accomplishments that she’d earned, and I had no clue.

So I need to remember that maybe someday there will even be people who think I don’t understand what it’s like to be bullied for my weight, because they’ve only even known me as a the supermodel I became later. I guess the older you get, the more that happens. Most of the people in my parents’ lives have only ever known them with kids. Hell, I’VE only ever known my parents as parents, not the clean-shaven law student or the reporter living in a cool apartment. (However, I’m positive that my dad has always made dad jokes.)

Weight loss will hopefully just be a part of my past someday, just like the months I thought crunchy gelled hair = extreme attractiveness. And it should be. I might always have to think about food a little to maintain, but it won't be like now, where weight loss is high on the priority list. 140-pound Leah will be the new Leah.

Weekly Weigh In and Weight Watchers Changes

Remember all that stuff I wrote about Weight Watchers and points? Well, they just changed everything. If you have a TV you might have seen the commercials, and Oprah's smiley face seems to have taken over my app and the WW website.

They've been having mass technological issues - I unfortunately had several days worth of stuff just kind of disappear. It seems to be back online, and hopefully will be sorted out once everyone is on the new system.

The point is, last night I was down another 1.4, for a total of 5.4 pounds lost in three weeks! I am really excited at this progress. 

So, the changes to Weight Watchers - they've changed how they calculate points. Ten years ago, food points were calculated by calories, fat, and fiber. Five years ago, they changed that to carbohydrates, fat, fiber, and protein. Now, points are calculated by counting calories, sugar, protein, and fat.

The calories act as the baseline, and then protein can lower points while sugar makes it skyrocket. They're also trying to focus more on whole health, but honestly I'm kind of "eh" about that part.

The point is that they are really, really, penalizing sugar now. A candy bar that was 7 points is now 12. My standard breakfast, the Fage 2% with honey, jumped from 5 to 9 points! On the other hand, beans, tuna, and chicken breast went down. They adjusted the daily and weekly flexible/anytime points. Mine essentially stayed the same - my dailies went up by one, but my weeklies went down by seven. This is going to be tricky since a lot of food are higher in points now - not just sugar, but dairy - but I'm still on the same amount of points. Fruits and veggies are still free, though!

Regarding the sugar penalty - I adore sugar, and at first I was really annoyed by the changes. How can Weight Watchers have the whole "lifestyle" and "fitting everything in moderation" shtick if they make the cost of a slice of birthday cake basically prohibitively high? This I soupboxed at John for awhile.

After a bit of thought, though, I think maybe it could be good for me. I really do struggle with sugar. Maybe this could help me to have fewer treats and appreciate them more. How many times have I grabbed a 40-calorie mini Milky Way from the office candy bowl? A hundred million? How many do I remember, how many did I taste? Zero, probably. In the end it just became a habit. Maybe this will help me stop, when I realize how much it's costing me.

To my fellow, celebrators, Happy Chanukah! As someone trying to lose weight, I'm super duper pumped about a holiday that revolves around frying things and eating them.
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Thanksgiving and Happy Updates

Hi everybody.

So here's where I left off: Feeling angry at myself for weight gain, frustrated at my lack of motivation, feeling like 20 pounds was just a silly dream, waiting to hear on dream job.

Now:

• Didn’t get the dream job, unfortunately. I thought it went great, (and it did!) but there was just someone they liked more, I guess. I’m going to keep trying.
• Lesson: some industries, like publishing, are really hard to break into.
• Ended up at Target with my mom last week and she helped me find a couple more dresses. My mom has an amazing talent for picking out flattering clothing for anyone. And now I really feel like I have a solid fall/winter wardrobe for work and life.

Remember how many “new plans” I came up with, and how I ended up stopping each one after, at most, a couple of weeks? The small meals, the trying to track, the fake Whole30, I gave up on all of it. The plus it that it more or less kept my weight the same at about 185, so at least I’m not heavier than I was in the summer. The minus is that it’s now been at least four months since I speed-gained ten pounds and the pounds are still hanging around.

I joined Weight Watchers two weeks ago. I pre-signed up for three months, and told John that whatever happened, I would go to one meeting a week and weigh in for those 12 weeks. And that I would try, of course, but the main commitment is that I’m going to weigh in and attend the weekly meetings they had. I was a member back in 2011-2012 during my senior year of college, where I lost 40 pounds. It was amazing, I felt great, then graduated and life got in the way, this is all outlined here.

So, skip to the present, I went back to the program that actually worked for me.

For those not familiar, Weight Watchers is a huge American weight loss company. Food is assigned a number of “points” based on the amount of carbs, fat, protein, and fiber in it, and you get a certain amount of points to “spend” per day on food, plus a weekly extra 49 points that can be spent all at once, one day at a time, or not at all. Anything else? Oh yes, fresh fruits and non-starchy vegetables are zero points, which encourages members to choose them over other things.

I like this plan. It’s flexible and I’ve found that tracking is a good tool for me.

I might add this to the sidebar, but just so everyone knows: I am not being sponsored, and am not affiliated with or ever compensated by Weight Watchers (or any company) in any way.

There happened to be a meeting about 5 minutes from my workplace, so I decided to start there. I was actually really, really emotional and felt like I was holding back tears the entire time.

They told me I weighed 194. I was like, “What the fuck? Two days ago I weighed 184.” I’m chalking it up to a different scale and weighing in at night with clothes on as opposed to in the morning in just underwear. That being said, I’m just going to say that 194 is my real weight. It helps that my scale is actually broken - I ascertained this fact when it weighed me in at 133.3 pounds, so that will make it all the more easy to just accept this number.

Two weeks ago I weighed 194. Last week - my first  week - I was down 1.2. I was disappointed at that result for the first week, but couldn’t really complain as I had gone over my points by a bit. The next week, (so last week), Thanksgiving, I was awesome on plan for a couple of days, then really struggled Thanksgiving weekend. I didn’t go crazy, but I did stop tracking so can’t really be sure what I ate.

I was annoyed at myself, thinking that I’d be two weeks into a diet and actually weigh more than when I started. That’s… not how I want it to go. To my utter shock, I was down 2.8 pounds, for a total of 4 pounds. Assuming that’s a little of the first week catching up, or luck, or even water loss, but I’m not going to question it. Four pounds down.

So now I'm 'officially' 190. Cue ugh sound.

That being said, I am trying really hard not to slack off on tracking, and to actually work the plan and stay within my points. I do think I ate less in those two weeks and lost weight, but that kind of off-plan guessing won’t work for long. So far this week has been good! I actually feel soothed when I track, and see the little numbers and know I’m where I want to be. It’s a great feeling.

I know I’ve been lousy at updating. Sometimes I’m just not sure I have anything to say. However, I make a pinky-Internet-promise swear that I will at least update every Wednesday or Thursday after weigh in and report on my progress.

Here we go, week 3!

Newer, Bigger Clothes

New clothes. New clothes in bigger sizes. 

One of the things I did during our recent trip to Philadelphia was buy some new clothing at Macy’s. They were (as always) having a huge sale, plus I had a 30% off coupon and a very old $40 gift card, so I ended up getting 7 business/business casual tops and a pair of pants for just about $115. (As always, I am not getting compensated to write this. I just really love Macy’s. I will definitely accept free stuff though, Macy's!)

These last 10-15 pounds from the summer gain seem to have all gone to my stomach and ass, which are definitely both areas that I like to cover as a general rule. But these days, getting dressed in the morning has actually become stressful as I keep trying to find things that look decent instead of terrible for work. I'm not looking to look amazing, just to be wearing simple clothes that do their job and don't make my body actively look worse than it is. Instead, I end up in clothing that I can clearly see is just really unflattering. Not obscene or skintight, just snug and very unflattering. Think the "Is she pregnant or just fat?" fall look.

I realized that this was making me feel even worse about myself, and that buying clothes that fit better is not “rewarding” weight gain or encouraging me to gain more, and I don't deserve to wear too snug clothes and feel like I look terrible, not to mention just unprofessional.

One of the most popular posts on this site is where I wrote about why goal weight clothes are pointless. The flip side of that is something I realized over the trip: having clothes that fit is important too. 

I hate, hate, hate buying clothes in bigger sizes, especially when I have theoretically have a lot of clothes that "should" fit, but what I hate more is always feeling like I just look messy.

So, bottom line: I'm still very uncomfortable in my body - working on it, more on that later - but I don't want to feel terrible about myself in the meanwhile. If you're in my shoes too, see if you can spare even $50 to buy a couple of things that you can at least feel okay in.

Showing My Face & Philadelphia Highlights (Prisons! Signings!)

John and I just got back from our trip to Philadelphia. It was really fun - we basically just let Tripadvisor tell us what we should do and see, and went from there. After some research, we decided to stay in an Airbnb apartment instead of a hotel near the city center, and it was fantastic - saved at least $300, and that’s for more space and a kitchen! Will never stay in a hotel again if I can swing it.

Highlights included:

The Liberty Bell

• They also had a really thought-provoking exhibit on slavery, and how its continued existence was in awful and highly hypocritical parallel with the slave-owning founding fathers (like George Washington)

Independence Hall

• Birthplace of the US, where the Declaration of Independence was argued, drafted, and signed. (Tours are free!)
• Also the site of National Treasure, a movie I unironically love

Eastern State Penitentiary

• A prison that had running water before the White House, this place was fascinating and the exhibits were so well done. You get a set of headphones when you start, and it’s all a self-guided tour and you can just wander around and see the cells, tunnel from the 1945 escape attempt, death row, baseball diamond
• We learned about how the prison changed over the hundreds of years in which it operated and how it was abandoned/condemned in the 1970s, and finally turned into a museum after two decades of arguments and politics

Jewish Museum

• Lots of interesting information, but I was hoping for more artifacts and first person accounts (i.e. things you can’t get online or from a textbook)

Unlimited Bowling at Lucky Strike

• Not special to Philly, but I wanted to memorialize that we played five games in one evening. Don’t ask for our scores, though.

We also walked about 25 miles over the time there - that was essentially our mode of transportation. By the end my feet hurt a lot (John was fine, weirdo) but it was overall a great trip, and all just a couple of hours away.

So, the burning questions - food and weight. As of Wednesday, I weigh 183.2, which is actually about half a pound down from a month ago. That’s good. On the trip I got a picture of what will make a good "before" or "during" of being at 183 pounds.

Thus, presenting for the first time on this blog, my face. Huge moment, I know. I figured that anyone reading this who knows me would figure it out anyway pretty quickly, so why not? And yes, I wasn't exaggerating about how pale I am.

With John’s encouragement, I started tracking again on MyFitnessPal during the trip and have now kept it up for the whole week! Baby steps, I know. I’ve mostly abandoned the whole “small meals” thing in favor of this. I didn’t seem to be working for me, or maybe I didn’t give it a fair chance, I’m not sure. I do know that it felt odder than I thought it would to eat basically a snack with my colleagues eating their lunches, and then have 2-3 snacks during the day.

My goal for the trip was just to stay at maintenance level - which, in part thanks to all our walking, I am happy to say I did.

I’m still really, really struggling with believing in myself. That I can still do this where I’ve failed so many times, regained so much weight, and use food as a comfort, a reward, and a punishment. That all the little bits will add up to weight loss. I’m trying. I know that probably everyone who’s had weight to lose has felt this way, even the people who ultimately succeed. I so badly want to be one of them. For now, I’m working really hard to at least track my food and stay at maintenance level, but I really want to up my game and get back into the 170s.