Tiny Glow

Today I made my sneaky entry into the 150s, weighing in at 159 lbs (a loss of 1.5 lbs since last week). I’m beyond pleased, you guys. I am Totally Stoked!

I am also down 44 lbs total now. The big 5-0 is on the horizon. WOW. Just, wow. I’m so amazed and befuddled and proud of myself all at the same time. I just keep on going, and getting closer to my goal. I’m not perfect, but I’m doing well enough to keep improving, month after month. A new progress picture will be forthcoming very soon!

This week I did manage to incorporate three salads (I was striving for four, but alas!) into my lunch rotation. Additionally, M and I got inspired in the kitchen over the weekend and we ate a hearty side of kale with our Saturday evening meal. I’m satisfied with my nutritional progress this week. I still have lots of work to do in this area, but I’m finally starting to make small but positive changes. And I’m still completely soda-free.

Soon I’ll be hitting the six-month mark of my weight-loss journey—although in a way it’s been years in the making. Six months ago I don’t think I had any real concept of the many positive changes I would be enacting and experiencing as a result of my decision to do something about my weight. What will the next six months bring?

How about you? Have you made any big changes in the past six months? What would you like to accomplish in the next six months?

Remember this shirt? Well, it’s getting loose on me. When I first bought it, the blouse was nicely fitted (see pic!), but it is starting to hang on me just a bit.  It’s a nice problem to have. . . . I just wish I had the funds to immediately replace it and the rest of its too-big brethren immediately.

Let me be frank with you guys: Money has been on my mind lately. Most of us who have ever gone on a diet know that weight loss costs money. Some of the costs are obvious:

• Gym membership, personal training fees, or cost to join an exercise class
• Pantry and fridge sweeps and replacement with healthy foods; possible special diet shakes and meals. Diet program membership costs.

But what about the less-obvious price tags attached to weight loss?

• New work clothes every 8 weeks or so, because you can’t show up to the office looking like a slob or with your pants falling off.
• Fitness gear like good walking/running shoes (very important!) and clothes to wear while working out; if you’re a former couch potato like I am, you didn’t have any lying around before you got started.
• Occasional misjudgment costs: As a health and fitness newbie, you may occasionally make a wrong choice. There was the  time I bought a huge butternut squash at the farmer’s market, attempted to make soup out of it, failed miserably, and had to throw the whole batch away. Once I signed up for an exercise class up front that I hated almost immediately, but couldn’t get my money back at that point.
• New kitchenware if, like me, you used to rely exclusively on pre-made foods  and are now branching out into the wonderful world of home-cooking.

So yes, my weight loss  has cost me. But my weight gain and obesity cost even more:

• I spent about $10 on sweets/soda every single day. May not sound like much, but it really adds up!
• My depression was much more frequent and severe, costing me extra doctor’s visits and mental anguish.
• New clothes . . . as I continued to go up a size at least once a year. Plus size clothes, in case you don’t know, are often twice as expense as “normal”-sized clothing.
• Eating out or ordering delivery frequently cost me another $50 – 75 per week, I’d estimate.
• Heartburn medicine isn’t free! My old eating habits frequent caused me intense esophageal distress, and most nights I had to take something to alleviate the discomfort so that I could sleep.
• Friends. I realize this is not true for all obese people, but in my case I stopped wanting to appear in public/social situations, and just sort of fell off the radar. I am naturally an introvert, but being so much heavier than I wanted to be magnified this tendency tenfold (at least). I am slowly coming out of my shell again, but I’m the first to admit it takes time.

Money is something I have to manage very carefully, but in my current situation (losing weight, gaining health), I am willing to do that because the pay-off is worth it. I still can’t have everything I want, but I do get a few of my wish-list items now and then to keep myself happy. Boot camp is a substantial cost currently, but down the road I hope to be able to self-motivate myself to work  out intensely enough on my own and no longer be dependent on Coach barking orders ;). In the meantime, I’m learning a lot and losing weight quite nicely too.

How about you? What are/were your costs for being heavier? What does it cost you to lose weight?

Last night we created a fantastic home-made dinner sourced from two fairly simple recipes: lemon-marinated chicken and kale with pecans. The two dishes’ flavors paired together unexpectedly well, and both were recipes that even a novice in the kitchen like myself could put together. Win!

I was so excited about eating the dinner that I didn’t snap a picture—not that I have the SLR camera or the skills that the internet’s foodie bloggers have. But I did get to witness M gobbling down every last bite of his greens, which is worth more than a hundred photographs to me.

Although I’ve experimented with some lunchtime salads over the past week, this was probably my first time ever cooking up a dish of savory greens. The pecans and the kale brought out the best in each other and the dish was easy to make, a definite winner!

For those of you who are very comfortable and confident in the kitchen, I may not be able to adequately explain how triumphant I felt as we sat down to enjoy our meal last night. There is still so much I don’t know about preparing tasty and nutritious meals, but yesterday was a significant milestone for me and I know we will be eating lemon chicken and kale with pecans again before too long!

It’s not hip to admit it, but I crave structure and routine on some deep, primal level. A big part of me wants an authority figure to put my trust in. The problem is that inside this would-be follower is a very stubborn, itchy, restless brain that finds holes in almost everything, and something to distrust in just about everyone. This applies to many areas of my life, and my weight-loss journey is a prime example.

For over a decade I’ve craved one absolute fool-proof eating and exercise plan to follow with all my heart and mind, and yet each time I have settled on an official plan, I found one aspect of it that gnawed away at my belief in its “rightness.” There is just so much conflicting information out there.

I once read somewhere that diets are like religions: tempers and loyalties burn hot when the subject comes up. I have yet to whole-heartedly join any religion for the long haul, and I suppose the same is true about my weight-loss plan.

Maybe this is meant to be. After all, I didn’t start succeeding until I gave up trusting any one plan to tell me how to lose weight. At the same time, I don’t think this strategy would necessarily work for everyone; we are all so incredibly different even as we pursue common goals.

Participating in CrossFit boot camp, I hear a lot about the Paleo diet. I’ve read and continue to read a good amount on the subject; and yet I cannot bring myself to commit myself to it fully. In recent days, I have read two well-written but differently positioned posts: one an anti-grain manifesto and one a fairly balanced critique of the Paleo plan. My mind feels uneasy.

In the end, I will probably always be doing my own version of any pre-established plan I find. The person in me who just wants things to be simple and tidy is eternally uncomfortable with this. Part of me (and I’m ashamed of this) just wants to be a good girl who does what she’s told and follows the rules and gets an A. But in the end, life is just as much about art as it is about science. We are barely organized chaos at best sometimes, and can’t be straitjacketed or shoehorned into a mold that doesn’t fit us.

This is a guest post written by my awesome boyfriend of three years, M. He has his own blog about gaming, but he was willing to write a special post today for Tiny Glow about his experiences so far during my lifestyle makeover. Enjoy!

So, I got on the scale the other day.  The last time I did so, I weighed a little over 160 lbs.  Hilary just reached 160, so she wanted to see if she’d passed me yet.  To our surprise, I weighed in at 144 lbs!  I lost about 15 pounds and I’m not really sure how.  But looking back, I can guess. . . . It probably started with the diet soda.

I used to drink a lot of regular soda.  Hilary used to drink a lot of diet soda. When she and I first moved in together, I tried some of hers and it was okay.  Since it’s easier to just buy one kind of soda at the store, I started drinking the same kind she did.  As time went by, she drank less of it and somehow, so did I. When she started on the Tiny Glow project, I wanted to be supportive.  I encouraged her as best I could, and I helped her think of solutions when the planning got difficult.

I started thinking about what people eat a lot more than I ever had before.  Food choices were heavily on her mind, so I made it part of my mind, too.  We had discussions about eating during the holidays, whole foods versus processed foods, and different approaches to diet in general.  We talked about protein, fiber, carbs, and the importance of plenty of water.

Somewhere in all that, I started eating differently.  We stopped eating out as often, since it was hard to figure the calories for her meals if we didn’t make it at home.  I stopped eating candy as often, since there wasn’t any in the house (and I didn’t want to buy any for myself and make her unhappy).  I started eating more healthy foods, since they were in the house.  I started increasing my protein and fiber, just because it was on my mind.  I started drinking water at work instead of soda.  I didn’t snack as often, because I didn’t want to eat in front of her if she was hungry but didn’t have calories to spare in her plan.

So I guess that I lost weight just because she was.  Being surrounded by healthier options caused me to choose them more often, mostly because it was easier than leaving the house to seek out an unhealthy option. Maybe you can improve your loved ones’ lives simply by improving your own. It appears to have worked on me!