Misery Loves Company

So. Despite the fact that I don’t have much to report in-as-far as progress, I have been looking forward to writing this all week. I’ve just been crazy busy and frankly, more tired than usual. Could it be…oh, I don’t know…the hundred and ten degree weather here?! So sick of it already and summer’s barely even started. But I digress.

I am down to 158 as of this morning…God only knows how. Although I haven’t been counting calories for the past couple of weeks (maybe longer), I’ve somehow managed to maintain. I’ve consistently stayed between 159-161 the past several weeks. I do realize that my goal at this point isn’t to “maintain”…in case you’re wondering. But the way things have been going, I’m just glad I haven’t ballooned back up to 170. Feels like I should have. And now for my confession. Forgive me father for I have sinned. I have had approximately 6 diet Cokes in the past 2 weeks AND I have only walked on the treadmill ONCE in the past 8 days (I did walk/run today for 30 minutes though). Sorry, that’s my strict Catholic upbringing rearing its ugly head.

On another note, I watched the new show Losing it with Jillian Michaels last week (I tivo’d it this week but haven’t gotten around to watching it yet). At any rate, although I think Ms. Michaels is WAY over the top, so many things she says resonates with me. Unlike the Biggest Loser, which I admit I have only watched about three episodes of during its entire run, her new shows focuses more intensely not just on the weight and exercise part of the equation, but on how these miserable people got to where they are. The family she visited was Italian and they were all significantly overweight, with the exception of the daughter who had had gastric bypass and was at a healthy weight now. The opening scene is of the family meeting with their doctor. She tells them that as obese as they are, they are at high risk for heart attack, heart disease, stroke…the list goes on. She reveals that the mom’s body fat is 56%. I didn’t even think that was possible. Throughout the show you find out that the couple had lost their first son a month after he was born with serious complications and they had never really grieved his death. The father refused to talk about it AT ALL to the mother, which in turn, left her feeling depressed and alone. He couldn’t even bring himself to buy a gravestone for the poor baby. Enter Jillian. She takes them immediately to their neighborhood gymnasium for some sweat-inducing agony. Within minutes, both the mom and the dad are ready to throw in the proverbial towel. Jillian screams at them. Their daughter screams at them. Finally they relent and run after Jillian telling her that they promise they will persevere if she’ll just give them another chance. There is a lot of counseling throughout the show, and by counseling I mean the family sitting around with Jillian crying and discussing their feelings. I cried through the whole damn show. I could relate to so much of what they said. And in the end, none of them felt worthy of good health. It really dawned on me as I was watching that the reason I probably stayed overweight so long is that I too, never felt like I was good enough to look and feel good about myself. My fat was literal padding to the outside world and to my emotions. Deep. When Jillian came back six weeks later (their goal was to lose about 50 lbs. each prior to the daughter’s wedding), they had all reached or exceeded their goals. Talk about motivation....

I also read a story about the Bachelorette today that really upset me…they actually called her fat even though she’s a size 6. Not cool. This is what makes girls and women in our society ultra-obsessed with dieting, plastic surgery, etc. I will write about it in the next day or two. Promise.