So much of what I did over these eight months taught me things that will only serve me well for anything that comes up in the future.  Through the weight loss I learned that you give your best effort and then you wait for nature to take its course.  That’s all you can do, anything that you force is not going to last and it’s not going to be as rewarding as what you wait for.  Through the exercise I learned that you can’t quit every time things feel slightly uncomfortable.  There is so much to gain from pushing through discomfort and to not allow yourself the pride that comes with that perseverance is a shame.   I learned that it’s alright to not always have all the answers or to have everything figured out.  I’ve learned that actions speak louder than words, both mine and other people’s.  I’ve learned that change is not the worst thing in the world and that a little discomfort won’t make me burst into flames.  Most importantly I think, is that through a close friend I learned to place my trust carefully but fully.  I learned that there is a huge reward in doing that, a reward that I never would have discovered were it not for him. 

I don’t presume to have everything all figured out, not by a long shot.  I still have questions and uncertainties and I’m still learning how to be the best version of myself that I can.  I still have things to finesse and goals to achieve.  What I also have is the strength to do that without having to rely on the crutch that this website was.  I’m a visual person and I think of it like a pendulum of sorts.  I was so far to one side that when I let go and started making some changes, the pendulum swung back the other way, hard.  For the next eight months it would continue do the same thing but gradually slow down.  I don’t believe that the pendulum ever stops moving (nor should it) but it has certainly come to a much more relaxed and centered swing.  That center is where it is possible to have setbacks or rough days and still be able to cope and behave in a way in which you are still respecting yourself.  That center is the place where, more than anything else, I am the most myself.  When I feel things swinging out of control I need to bring it all back to here.  I can do that now, I know what it feels like and what I have to do to get here. 

It’s a harsh thing to say (and I don’t presume to take the credit for this thought!) but there is nothing left for me here.  I can’t grow by staying here, as comfortable as it is.  It is only by letting go of certain safety ropes and taking some calculated risks that I can build my future.  This website and how honest and forthright I’ve been was a calculated risk when I began and every person that I know in real life to whom I gave the address was someone that I was taking a risk in trusting.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that as nice as it is to stay in one place where it’s safe and comfortable is actually part of what I was required to ‘recover’ from.  Staying where it’s safe at the expense of living life is, in fact, not safe at all.    

I say that I no longer need to rely on the crutch that this website is but I definitely am not flying solo just yet.  I have a particular friend (I think I might have mentioned him here now and again! ) who has essentially been holding my hand and leading me along the path this whole time.  No doubt all the work to do what I’ve done has been mine but he’s been there in a way that I can never fully explain.  One of the saddest things about this current situation is that our friendship has to change.  He’s been trying to tell me this for quite awhile and I didn’t understand it at the time.  He’d always said that his happiest moment would come the day I no longer had time to call or text message him.  I finally understand what that means.  I finally understand that it’s not him trying to make me feel bad or suggest that he doesn’t value the relationship that we have.  It’s perfectly clear to me now that it really is the best case scenario and an indication that I am achieving what I’ve been working towards.  It kills me inside though, it really does.   It feels like one thing has to come at the expense of another, that if I want a relationship of my own, if I want a life of my own where I am a central character then I have to let go of our friendship a little.  I have to let that friendship change in order to grow my own future and that breaks my heart. It’s already started though, whether I wanted it to or not.  Over the last little while he has been starting to let go, to stand back a little more.  Maybe it’s a conscious choice on his part or maybe it’s just the natural flow, I’m not sure.  I do know that I feel slightly adrift without that shelter.  I realize though that keeping things exactly the same is the equivilant of hiding behind fat.  It’s safe and secure and I know exactly what it feels like.  That’s not what I’ve worked so hard for though.  So I will take a leap of faith and trust that while the dynamic may change the fact will remain that we have a friendship that is solid and built on trust and honesty and that will never change.  Carey, never in life have I had a friend like you.  I know that you and I have talked about this before, how our friendship is a bit one-sided as far as support and guidance goes.  You don’t need from me what I have needed from you and that makes for a bit of an odd situation.  I don’t for one second believe that our friendship is any less because of that lopsidedness.  I owe you more than I can ever express, more than I can ever repay!  I am forever in your debt and you are forever in my heart! (and to your beautiful wife, “Thank you! In every way and for everything!”)

So what does the future hold for Lady Shanny?  Everything.  I hesitate to tell you all exactly what’s going on right now since I won’t be here to follow it up and that just doesn’t seem right to me.  What I can say is that I have “happy” in my sights.  It’s not all going to be rainbows and puppydogs, I’m not deluded.  But the happy that I’m getting to is a full-life one.  It’s not dependant on anyone or any one thing.  It’s a combination of doing the right things at the right times and letting everything work out in time, just as it’s meant to.

You all have been the most amazing support and you all have a hand in whatever success that I’ve had and will continue to have.  The life that I’m building is possible in part thanks to you!  The comments that you left and the emails that you sent and even just seeing you as a counted visitor to this site on a regular basis kept me going many a day.  You guys have taught me that there are real people out there who can care about someone that they’ve never met.  You guys have taught me that being honest and open is scary but so totally worth it.  Some of you have called me an inspiration.  Maybe I am but you all inspired me more than I ever dreamt was possible. 

If you want to stay in touch please mark down my email address:  ladyshanny at (gmail.com).  I’ve left the comments open on this post since it’s only fair to give you guys the opportunity to say good bye as well (I’ll still be around to read them).  And if you don’t feel like it, that’s fine too.  Please know that you have all meant so much more to me than I can ever express!

It’s with a heavy heart that I hit publish on this post and walk away.

First purchase:  This dress which is lovely.  (sorry the picture is so blurry)

Favourite Purchase:  This Puma vest  which was an awesome price (although I didn`t know how awesome until I got to the till!) and is going to get layered with the softest pink Puma polo shirt.  I think I smiled for about an hour after this purchase!

Most Surprising Store: I had no plans to go into Eddie Bauer but my mom wanted to take a peek and it turns out that Eddie and I have pretty similar taste. 

Most Amazing Moment:  Putting on a couple of size 6 items.

Most Costly Store:  Sephora!  Yikes! 

Hardest Things to Find:  Believe it or not (if you know me in real life) I had the WORST time finding shoes!  Nine West was alright but some of the other shoe stores that I can usually count on were a huge let down.  Until we drove 20 miles to another county to go to DSW Shoes.  SUCCESS!  I ended up coming home with 8 pairs of shoes altogether…which might seem extreme to some people but is just about right for me! 

Since I put a picture of my closet up the other day when I was lamenting my wardrobe nightmare, I thought I would put up a quick picture of how it looks now.  I included the before so that you could compare:

All in all it was a pretty good weekend.  Giant apple fritters were eaten (OK, just the one, but still!) laughs were had and clothes were bought (including one size 6 skirt!).  It definitely feels better to have a wardrobe again!

That`s it for me right now.  I told you that there would be an announcement tomorrow but I may have to push that back a wee bit.  I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon and then I`m having someone over shortly after that which means that it`s pretty much a given that the rest of the day and into the evening will be spoken for. 

Spring Forward came to an end for me this evening. I was a teensy bit annoyed since yesterday and the day before I had managed to get into my Personal Goal Range and then today, not so much.  Overall I lost 6.4 pounds in the month of April which is nothing to turn my nose up at.  The goal was to lose between 8 and 10 pounds for the month and since this was only a four week month that goal was probably a little optimistic for me (I managed it in March though).  It’s good to have things to aim at though, right?

How did you guys do?

So in the last few days after I wrote the previous post, I was starting to get back to my regular, non-neurotic ways but I was worrying a little about whether or not the trip back to The Main Road of Sanity was going to be a smooth one once the guy that I’m interested in came back from his 3 week holiday.  Was seeing him going to mess everything up in my head again?

I am happy to report that we had a lovely day together yesterday, laughed lots, did some stuff that we both enjoy and overall just enjoyed each other’s company.  It was good and that is good enough.  I’m not feeling any need to try and project past the next time we see each other or analyze every comment or look.  I don’t know quite how to explain how I’m feeling right now; almost like a weight has been lifted, or maybe it’s just that I’m back to the way that I’m supposed to be. 

There are definitely going to be some issues that we’ll have to deal with if this relationship continues to progress, but they don’t need to be dealt with right now.  Right now, it’s all good.  And that’s good enough.

I’ve been trying to decipher for the last week or so what changed in my journey that put me almost right back where I started, mentally.  You see, this journey wasn’t just about weight loss.  It was about getting my life back on track.  It was about moving past bad decisions and clearing the way for opportunities that I may not have had before.  I think what has happened is that I got too self-assured and too comfortable with how things were going and I “let go” of the reins.  The horse and buggy took off and now I’m left chasing after it.  Well dammit, that horse and buggy belong to ME and I’ll be damned if I’m going to void all my hard work and effort and just let it keep running to destruction.

So I’ve been sitting here thinking about what made me successful in my journey and comparing that to what’s changed. 

For one thing, I have always been a ‘fat person’ in my head.  It was part of my identity and especially in the last month or so I have had to shed that description.  I’m not fat.  Not even close!  It’s not an instant thing to then replace that with ‘normal person’ though.  The day that I looked in the mirror and really realized that I’m not fat anymore was the day when I lost part of the identity that I’ve carried for over a decade.  I sometimes wonder if that is part of the reason why people who lose a lot of weight put it back on really quickly.  It’s something that I wasn’t able to understand until now, why when you know how good you feel when you’re a normal weight, how you could ever go back.  I think this is probably a big part of the reason.   Fortunately I noticed that trap before I fell in.

For another thing, I have people telling me on a pretty regular basis how nice I look and while that’s lovely, it does certainly tend to shift the focus of the whole thing onto the image aspect.  Yes, it’s nice that I look better but it was never intended to be solely about the way that I look.  I’m still me, just in smaller jeans.  I’m still the funny, witty, loyal, slightly insecure person that I’ve always been.  The fact that people tend to notice the exterior before the interior these days makes me feel a little lost and without an identity.  It’s up to me to keep the focus of friendships and acquaintances off of the physical aspect of what’s happened.  Compliments are nice but they are superficial and in no way are they a testament to who I really am.

Also, in the last month or so it’s been picking in the back of my head that I am feeling totally exposed and like I have no protection left.  I realize now that that is totally my own doing.  In the last few years I’ve perhaps had less interaction with people than is generally healthy.  In this process of the weight loss I’ve been really honest with my dear friend and on this website.  It was something that was incredibly uncomfortable at the beginning but that yielded such amazing results that it was well worth the discomfort.  That has morphed into something that, again, has left my control and taken on a life of its own.   I went from one extreme of not ever telling anything about myself, to the other extreme of telling everyone everything.  That has to stop and I have to get some of that emotional protection back.  Less is more!

So ya, some stuff has gone a little screwy.  When I was running this evening I was thinking pretty hard about why I had done this and what I had hoped to gain from it.  I couldn’t seem to generate a thought about that though because the line that kept running over and over in my head was that I was feeling more lost than I had ever felt before and that just didn’t seem fair.  I’m not lost.  I may have veered off on a mislabelled side road but I’m on my way back to the main road again.  I may have lost a little of the respect that I had built for myself these past few months but I’ll get it back.  Some of the respect that I may have had from other people is probably a little tarnished but I’m committed to getting that back too.  Just like the fact that it is no secret that what I used to eat led me to being fat, it is no secret that certain mental behaviours are equally as problematic.  I can’t forget that I didn’t really change when I lost the weight.  All that happened was that I got to wear smaller clothes.  That’s it. 

If I have learned one thing from the actual weight loss it is that you put in the effort and you do what you have to do but then you wait.  You wait for nature to take its course.  You can’t force it or speed it along if you want it to stick.  It just is what it is, nothing more nothing less.  It takes as long as it takes and as long as you put in your best effort then you will get the results that you were meant to have.  That theory, without doubt, applies to every other aspect of life.  You put in your best effort and then you just wait.  Doing nothing can be infinitely more difficult than doing just about anything else and so it is an easy mistake to make to force an action when inaction is actually the best decision.

As far as my bad habit of examining and twisting and turning every little comment and action and look until I’m a neurotic little ball of anxiety?  I think the trick is to think of it a little like putting together a puzzle; you try a piece and if it doesn’t fit you put it back and try another piece until you eventually find the one that was meant to go in that slot.  You do not try to convince the wrong piece to fit, you don’t try and force it to fit and you don’t try to peel it apart to figure out why it doesn’t fit.  You simply try it and then put it back if it’s not the right one.  The piece is what it is, nothing more nothing less.  Actions, comments, looks, they are all puzzle pieces that are not meant to be examined at length and peeled apart.  They just are.  And unless that piece fits in the slot that you have available it ultimately means absolutely nothing.

It’s an odd thing because just these last couple of weeks I was engaging in the same type of behaviour that defined my life for the past couple years.  It was painfully familiar, these thoughts and actions.  I was doing to a ‘T’ what I had done before and in clarity right now I shake my head.  I was miserable and torn and ripped apart for 3 years because of it and then I walked right back into an almost identical situation and almost let it happen again.  I’ve noticed this time though, before it got me.  So in talking to my dear friend tonight I said that I was DONE with my desire for this other person.  My friend didn’t really believe that I could have flipped a switch so quickly as to be attracted to/infatuated with a guy on one day and then to be completely DONE several hours later.  My response to that?  I may still be physically attracted to this person but I am DONE because I can now see it for what it was.  A familiar behaviour in this unfamiliar little world I’m in right now. Painful and stupid, but familiar.   

So that’s a lot of stuff for me to chew on over the next couple of weeks.  May 2nd is going to be a well-deserved little vacation and while I do hope to be into my weight loss goal range by then, I am going to be spending a little more of my time focussing on straightening out this little kink I’ve run into than I am on the weight loss.

NOTE:  Comments on all posts are now closed.  The comments became a bit of a validation issue for me.  This website has always been for me.  I’m thrilled that people find inspiration or distraction or enjoyment from what I write but it really is just for me and having people comment on some of my most personal thoughts is perhaps not quite what I need right now.  Thank you very much for visiting me, I truly do appreciate it!

After a short MSN chat with my sister tonight I’m going to try something that she suggested that will hopefully give me my sanity back as far as all the changes that are going on right now. 

Princess Sister says:  Maybe you should try living in the moment rather than discecting everything that’s going on.  That might make it more fun and things will fall into the proper place…instead of you trying to predict what that will look like.

Lady Shanny says:  I like everything to be all figured out and when it’s not it makes me neurotic!

Princess Sister says:  Pretty hard to live in the moment when you think you have it all figured out…makes it pretty hard to let something different happen when it isn’t what you’ve ‘figured’

That all makes perfect sense to me.  I’m torturing myself trying to predict how everything is going to go.  I’m torturing myself for not having my whole life all figured out.  And it’s making me crazy!  My dear friend said to me today that it sounds to him like I don’t know what I want out of life.  My answer to that?  You bet I don’t!  I totally overhauled a pretty big portion of my life in a really short time which opened up new opportunities that I don’t yet know what to do with.  So I need to figure it out, for sure.  I do NOT need to have it all figured out in the next week.  That said, I am going to settle the hell down and stop being an irrational, neurotic fool for 18 hours out of the day and see if that goes a little better.

I know that I’ve mentioned this here before, but I’m at a point that I never, EVER thought I would get to.  The point where I have to decide if I’m done losing weight.  I know that, again, this is a great problem to have, all things considered, but it’s still weighing pretty heavily on my mind.  There is no real way to know if you will cross the line from healthy to sickly, weight-loss-wise, until you actually do it.  I would really rather not cross that line and so I’m having to tread gently as I move forward.  You see, according to the BMI Calculator I am just on the very inside of being Normal Weight (which means I’m on the borderline of being overweight).  To get right to the middle of my Normal Weight Range, I would have to weigh 150 pounds (which is another 22 pounds down) and that is just not reasonable for me. 

Realistically I realize that I cannot keep losing weight forever and still expect to be healthy.  In fact I think I’m probably right on the borderline right now as far as what will continue to look good and still serve me, health-wise.  I could easily continue right along the road that I’m on and keep my intake low and my output high and the weight would keep coming off, probably indefinitely.  There comes a point though when it truly is no longer necessary to keep taking weight off.  I realize all of that.  It is completely another thing to actually do something about it. 

I can look in the mirror now (sans clothes) and I’m pretty pleased with what I see. I realize that no amount of further weight loss is going to change my body type.  That’s something that I never really realized until just very recently.  I have the exact same body type and problem areas that I had when I was 75+ pounds heavier.  It’s all still exactly the same, just smaller.  I still have a tummy, it’s just much smaller.  The only way that I could ever expect to get rid of that is to do a whole bunch more exercise and start tightening and toning things up.  And then?  It might never be completely eliminated.  I’m actually alright with that.  I know where I came from.  I know how much good I’ve done for myself and I’m not in the slightest bit ashamed of the fact that I don’t have a model’s body.  I will wear a swimsuit this summer and not be horrified to let anyone see me in it.  I feel good and I’ve done well.  I’m healthy and I work at my fitness and I make good choices and I cannot expect my body to be anything that it is not. 

It’s the matter of now stopping the weight loss.  You see, I’ve been getting on the scale once per week for 31 weeks and expecting to see it go down.  And it has gone down every single one of those weeks save for 2.  That mind set of reduction is going to be a hard one to change since it’s driven everything that I’ve done thus far.  It’s going to be rough on me mentally to start seeing the scale go up a bit here and there because I am going to be in fear that it will just keep going up!  I have to somehow find a way to maintain my weight in my personal range.  Since my range is 170-160, I will have some room to wiggle around.  It’s going to be a matter of making sure that my weight is IN the range and then not worrying too much about it.  I know it’s actually a larger range than most people would take (WW lets you have a 2 pound range).  Since 160 is probably much too low for me, and I would not want to be anymore than I am now, the actual movement in the range is probably going to be from the middle to the high end (165-170). 

Honestly, this whole part scares the crap out of me.  I am heavily resisting putting the brakes on the weight loss.  In fact I’m so resistant to it that my dear friend suggested that I am walking a fine line of having a bit of a problem.  I truly do not have the kind of problem that he mentioned.  I am simply having a hard time flipping the switch from losing to maintaining.  Losing is an action that I have been really successful at.  It’s always nice to see a new number every week and to make progress, to buy new sizes, to wow even myself when I look in the mirror or look at photos.  It’s actually DOING something.  Maintaining what I’ve already done is the same amount of effort but there is no reward on the scale anymore.  If everything works out properly, my weight graph should just start to show a nice level line.  Since I would probably avoid flipping that switch indefinitely, I will continue to the end of SPRING FORWARD.  Wherever I end up by May 2nd when I go to Seattle is where I will put the brakes on.  Dear friend made a pretty decent point that since I’m going to Seattle that weekend to spend a whole bunch of time shopping and a whole bunch of money on clothes, where I am when I make those purchases should be where I’m to stay for the most part.  A switch of a couple of pounds in either direction shouldn’t make too much of a difference in the fit of those clothes.  The need to keep tailoring my pants and never having anything that fits is driving me batty and that just might be the catalyst I need to flip that damn switch!

I also have to remember that while the scale may not be moving, I am still going to be able to mark off improvement and progress in my running and whatever other fitness I take up.  I’ll be able to find a way to maintain my weight and still push myself physically.  At least that’s the plan!

So Dear Friend suggested two methods of going about this calorie increasing thing (because that’s the only way, short of ceasing to exercise altogether that I will stop losing weight).  The first option was to increase calories for every day of the week, spreading it out across all 7 days.  The second option was to keep everything locked down from Monday to Friday and then relax it all on the weekend.  I’m more inclined to pick the second option because it’s really the best of both worlds.  By keeping it on the level from Monday to Friday I’m keeping myself in the mindset of lower intake and higher output.  I would never really lose the momentum of what I’ve created in the last 31 weeks.  And then on the weekends (which, as I become less single, are going to be more relaxed anyway) I can relax and just let life happen.  Plus, when holidays or vacations come up I’m already going to be used to letting go for a couple of days and then getting right back on track. 

So that’s where I am right now.  Certainly not anywhere I ever thought that I would be.  Too skinny?  Ha!  You’ve got to bloody be KIDDING me!  And yet this spot I’m in of having to make that decision is proof that I did it and that feels good.  If you start out your weight loss journey as I did, knowing that there is never going to be an end point (which is, in my opinion, the only possible way to be successful) and that you’ll have to fight for your whole life for this then this spot that I’ve found myself in is one of the only indicators that the losing phase is over, that it’s time for the focus to change.

As I have done the entire time that I’ve been doing this, I’ve reassessed as I’ve gone along and made sure that what I was doing was still working for me.  I’ve tweaked here and there to get things to work exactly as I want them.  Tweaking this part is just going to take a little more time and focus.  One of the ways that I’m going to change things starting right now is to count points up rather than down.  If you are following WW you know that you start out with a balance ‘in the bank’ and then you eat out of those points all day and ideally you end up at zero by the end of the day.  Well since that need to end up at zero can be incredibely restrictive for me, I’m going to count UP.  We’ll see how that goes.

So as we can see, this is what happens when you have a long talk with a friend, skip exercise in favour of beer drinking and then sit down and type out a post.  Long and wordy!  Fortunately there is no hockey tomorrow so I’ll be doing a good hard run and working some of this stuff out in my head as I do it.

As always, comments are more than welcome!

So what do I do now?  Since I have a whole evening to do whatever I want, I’m going to watch a little hockey, have a bubble bath, make some tea, watch a movie, download some music.  Little bits of stuff that I don’t always have the time to do these days.  And I’m going to enjoy it!

I am totally looking forward to this week coming up.  We have playoff hockey on Monday and Wednesday night (I haven’t decided if I’m staying afterwards…poking a sleeping tiger and all).  I’ve switched my run days around to accomodate those games and I am interested to see what my performance is like with the rest days more spread out.  I also am looking forward to weigh in on Tuesday since I think there is going to be quite a drop from last Tuesday.  And then on Saturday, the guy I’ve started seeing is home from his holiday.  Since I haven’t seen him in 3 weeks, I’m looking forward to that.  I’m a little apprehensive about it but overall kind of excited.  So it’s going to be hopefully a fast week.  The faster the next two and a half weeks goes by, the sooner I get to go to Seattle and get some new clothes.  I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it on here or not but I’m so growly about this whole clothes thing right now.  I know, it’s a nice problem to have, but it makes me insane because even though the reason I have nothing to wear is because I am getting smaller, it still means that I have NOTHING TO WEAR!  And with Seattle getting so close I am very resistant to buying anything until then, although I did have to break down on the weekend and get ANOTHER new pair of jeans (size 8 from The Gap) since the ones that I was wearing were getting ridiculous!  I also hesitate to wear any of the too large clothes that I have because I do not work as hard as I do to go about looking frumpy!  Which is a HUGE change for me from this time last year since I didn’t much give a crap how I looked when I left the house.  Now that I’m slowly picking things up along the way (tips from some unlikely sources) and learning to make the most of what I have, anything less is really rather unacceptable.  I’ll take a picture of my closet before I go and then hopefully one when I come back, the idea being that there better be a bloody noticeable difference in the ‘after’ picture!

That’s it for me for tonight, I have lazy things to do.

UPDATE:  I did some of my lazy things and then I started mucking around on the computer and decided to put up the closet picture.  I also did a new picture grid that I thought I would post as well.

The closet picture, from left to right:  3 pairs of Gap jeans, 2 of which are too big.  3 pairs of black dress pants, one pair of which is a little too big but still serviceable if I wear them right out of the dryer.  2 sweaters, 3 button down, long sleeved dress shirts, 2 t-shirts and 3 jackets one of which is too big but it’s so pretty that I don’t want to donate it.  As you can see from the top shelf, I have an over-abundance of coat hangers and an under-abundance of clothes to hang on them.  You can also see that the color palette in my closet leans more toward the fall/winter end of the color spectrum.  I cannot WAIT to go to Seattle!

And the grid picture.  I did this once already at New Year and decided that I would do it again now.  The difference between the top left and the bottom right (not the q-mark) is around 75 pounds (official number to be revealed on Tuesday).  The difference between the two bottom row pictures is about 30 pounds.  I put the question mark in as a place holder and will update the grid in another 3 months, we’ll see if there is any noticeable change.

The problem that I’m having right now though is that in the last couple of weeks I’ve become far more aware of just how far I’ve come and, really (without sounding egotistical and full of myself) just how good I look and that has created some new problems.  I realize that I have given myself a kind of power that I’m going to have to learn how to control. 

For one thing, I have the power and the ability now to create whatever body that I want to have.  I know what I have to do and how hard I have to work to ultimately do whatever I want with myself.  That one is a bit of a fine line because while it is easy to stay motivated when going after a specific goal, I have to make sure that what I’m doing to get there is going to be sustainable forever.  So if all of a sudden I start running 6k, 7 days a week to get down to a certain size, I have to be willing to do that forever.  Obviously, I’m not.  That’s the fine line that I have to walk. Increasing exercise will be an option as long as I do it slowly and deliberately and while bearing the future in mind.  As soon as I’m doing it blindly and with just one goal in mind, I’m going to have problems.  At this point I really don’t see myself increasing it much more than I already do, simply because I don’t have that much time to spare.  Already I’ve cut back from 5 days/week to 4 because I was having a hard time getting things done.  Plus, if I start to feel resentful about what I’m ‘forcing’ myself to do, it’s not going to last very long.  Similarly (although I have not done that, nor am I willing to), I could decrease the amount of calories that I’m eating in order to get the scale to a certain number although unless I’m willing to stay that low, calorie-wise, it’s not a reasonable thing to do. 

I’m also having a bit of a struggle with the guy thing.  First of all, there is the guy I’m currently seeing.  He’s great (as I’ve mentioned) and I am looking forward to seeing where this goes.  On the other hand, I have spent the whole of my twenties in a pretty bad place, life-wise, and now that I’m out of that and free, I’m feeling a little ripped off.  I didn’t do the dating thing and the flirting thing and I feel like I totally ripped myself off.  So when I’m standing next to someone (not the guy I’m seeing) who I have found incredibly attractive for the last 4 years, and he says things to me that flips my stomach and looks at me without bothering to cover up his attraction, it makes me feel good.  And it makes me want certain things from him which is weird because he scares the tar out of me.  He’s bold and a little aggressive.  He’s the kind of guy who is going to come to the table with what he wants and either just take it or charm it out of you.  I know what he wants and I know that it isn’t likely to be any kind of relationship with me.  I, obviously, am not going to/am not willing to go down that road but in a way it makes me really resentful that I’m not.  It makes me annoyed that I have had things happen that make it so that I cannot go the route of ‘fun for a short while’ because it would break me inside.  I need to let it be enough that I could make/let certain things happen because of how I look.  Isn’t that one of the ultimate goals; to be and feel attractive and to have it work in your favour?  It sounds slightly manipulative and maybe it is, but since I’ve never had the option of playing this game before now, I have more of a desire to do it than perhaps I should.  In my lucid moments, when I’ve come home and the haze of that attraction wears off, I know that by doing nothing, I’ve done the right thing.  I know what the right thing is in this instance and, like my dear friend says, if you have to talk yourself into it, it is probably not the right choice.  If you have to make excuses for why it would be alright and justify it to yourself and your close friends, if you know that people who care about you are not going to be impressed, then it is probably not the right choice.  In this case I have a good friend who has warned me about this particular person and the situation and has made some pretty obvious comments to try to preclude anything from happening.  While it annoys the shit out of me when people do things that they feel are ‘in my best interest’, I have to have a little appreciation for my friend because he can see clearly what I’m seeing through a fog and he’s throwing himself in front of me to stop anything from happening.  This is an exerpt from an email that I just sent to this friend:

Do I like Ray?  You bet!  I think he’s wonderful man.  He’s nice to me, he cares about me, he’s respectful and hasn’t given me anything to be concerned about at all.  I am definitely attracted to him and I miss him and want him to come back!  Simon is completely at the other end of the spectrum though.  I don’t know a thing about him, I don’t know if he’s respectful or courteous.  I don’t know if he would text me or call me or bring me coffee.  Similarly, Simon doesn’t know a bloody thing about me.  I don’t know if he would put up with my hangups and my intimacy issues.  The thought of dating him scares the crap out of me but that tiny bit of fear is a bit of a motivator to do it anyway.

I know what the right answer is.  I know that dating Simon is not the way to go.  I know that I’m still a little fragile inside and that, really, having anything to do with him would not do anything to strengthen that.  I can predict with a reasonable degree of certainty how it would go and it makes me shake my head that I would even give it a second’s thought.  But you see, I’m a little competetive and while that works out great for things like taking up running when someone tells me that I can’t do it, perhaps it is not the best theory for dating.  I know that Simon didn’t give one rat’s ass about me when I was fat.  I saw him every weekend for 4 years and not one time did he ever make any indication that he was interested in me.  That said, it’s a bit of a feather in my cap to be able to change that dynamic in my favour.  As in, “I changed me and now I will change your mind about me and you will see how lovely and funny and sweet and caring I am.”  I guess I should point out that I have no issue with the fact that men were not attracted to me when I was overweight.  Not only was I fat but I was unhappy and unhealthy.  It is not Simon’s issue that he wasn’t attracted to me before.  That is my issue and mine alone and I harbour no resentment for that at all.  He’s certainly not the only one who has decided that they now like the way I look.  I know that the Fat Acceptance people would say that he should have had an appreciation for me when I was fat, regardless.  I guess from my point of view, not only did I change my body but I changed my attitude and my outlook and my lifestyle and all of that will definitely make me more attractive.   

My final thought.  I was talking to one of the girls at work the other day and she had this to say: “There are three types of guys.  The ones who are infatuated with you and want to be with you constantly and build their entire world around you.  They like you too much and as women that annoys us.  There are the ones who don’t pay enough attention to you, who keep their lives seperate from yours and don’t include you unless they have to or it works for them.  They don’t like us enough and as women that annoys us.  And then there are the ones who just like you, pay attention to you in appropriate quantities and within an appropriate timeline.  They like us the right amount and as women that escapes our attention.”   It’s these men who are normal and appropriate that we should be focussing our time and attention on and yet we decidedly ignore that in favour of the two extremes.  Well this woman has the potential for a relationship with a guy who is right in that middle category and I am not going to screw it up with an extreme (in this case, I’m predicting he would be the ‘not enough’ extreme).

So yes, it is amazing to have someone look at me with undisguised desire in their eyes and say things to me that make my knees weak.  AMAZING!  But that’s exactly where it has to to stay.  I am not going to take the risk of undoing any good that I’ve done by allowing that look or those words to determine my actions.

So the running.  I finally, FINALLY have a new base point to work from.  I was having such a struggle to get to 4k over the last month and then on Monday it just all sort of came together and it was like it was meant to be.  I wondered if that was going to have been an anomoly and maybe I wouldn’t be able to do it again so I was apprehensive when I went out for my run this evening.  But lo and behold I was able to do it again.  I’m not going to say that it is super simple and effortless but all of a sudden that distance is reasonably comfortable for me to run.  Which is freaking AWESOME! 

I was remembering this evening when I first started out with the exercising, how hard that walk to and from work was.  How much I suffered and how that was the absolute extent of my ability.  And I was remembering in January when I walked 5 miles and that was the most I was able to accomplish.  I was thinking about how when I was first starting to run/walk that I didn’t believe there would ever come a point when I was thinking about anything other than how much agony I was in and how much I hated what I was doing.  And now?  I enjoy the time I spend out there (for the most part…I’m not going to lie, some days really suck!) and it’s the time when I do some of my best contemplating and thinking.  There is something about the physiology of exercise that, now that I’ve started to get a little bit efficient at it, creates a clarity that I don’t get at any other time. 

Additionally, since I’ve now been able to increase the exercise, I think I’ve come off the little ledge that I was on as far as weight loss.  It seemed to take me a really long time to recover from Fourth Week and my time of the month as far as the scale is concerned but what I actually think it was is a plateau that I could have stayed on indefinitely.  I think that I could have very well come to a reasonable stopping point and maintained quite nicely if I hadn’t been willing or able to increase the exercise.  Yes, I know, I don’t want to lose weight in my boobs and my curvy bits but more than that I really want to keep pushing myself in the exercise and that is automatically going to make the weight come off.  I’ll never be a waif and that’s fine.  But I can get fitter and that’s what I’m aiming for.

And finally, the guy.  He called me this evening and we had a nice chat.  He’s still out of town for another week and a half and that’s a little bit sucky.  But this evening after I hung up the phone the first thought in my head was ‘uh-oh’.  For various reasons and the way that the conversation went, when I hung up the phone I felt like he had managed to take down one of the small bricks in the barrier that I’m trying to keep up.  And that gave me the uh-oh feeling….in a good way…sort of…