Good News and More Good News? Or Not.

I wasn't late for my workout this morning! I left my house on time, which meant I was 25 minutes early (when I leave 10 minutes later, I end up being 15 minutes late due to the morning traffic). Luckily, everyone in my group was early today, so we were able to chat while the previous class finished up. It was cold outside this morning, so we didn't do our warm up outside. In fact, we didn't do it inside either. Normally, I'd raise an objection (especially since my first station was weight lifting), but the lack of a warm up meant one spectacular thing: NO JUMPING JACKS TODAY!

At first I thought it was my birthday, but then I remembered that isn't until July. Whatever the reason, I am so happy that we didn't have to do any fling-flanging jumping jacks today that I'm glowing. We did three stations today: weights, cardio, and abs. For weights, we did various presses that focused on chest, triceps, and shoulders. For cardio, we used the treadmill and elliptical machine. Our trainer set the treadmill to a 15% incline and let us choose the speed. I was walking slowly, but the incline definitely got my heart working. I felt really awkward on the elliptical, because my arms are a little short for this particular machine. For our ab station, we did several types of crunches, bicycles, and my favorite - dead bugs.

--- ... ---

The first part of this post was written this morning, before weigh in. Watch how my tone darkens suddenly. Be afraid. Be very afraid. First, I should mention that my antidepressants ran out a few days ago, so I'm really emotional today. Which explains why I almost started crying in front of three trainers this afternoon. I felt like I was eight years old again-sad little fat girl having an emotional breakdown. Here's what happened: I gained .8 lbs this week. I'm up to 203.8 lbs. I gained! [If I wasn't trying to keep this blog curse free, there would be a lot more sentences here.] Granted, I didn't gain 2 pounds like the scale said on Wednesday, but I expected to at least lose point something this week. I've been eating well, doing my workouts, and I did a grueling 3 hour hike on Saturday. That alone should have brought my weight down a bit. To top things off, the scale put my body fat at 43.8% whereas last week it said 43.1%. Granted, the trainers all quickly said that its measurement is so inaccurate that I should disregard it. I don't think I managed to disregard it.

There were three trainers in the room while I weighed in. One checking the numbers, one entering them in the computer, and one who had reviewed my food diary with me who just wanted to see how I did. When we looked at my food, he had nothing negative to say other than to up my protein at breakfast and he chastised me for my two nights of indulgence in chocolate soy ice cream (too much sugar). Other than that, he said I was eating really, really well. He did suggest I cut out peanut butter because it might be triggering my headaches, but my meal timing and amounts are right on. That's why he was so excited to see my weigh in numbers.

Holy poop. I was so disappointed. I can't even logic myself into feeling good about this week. Here's what the trainers tried: "Point eight pounds is nothing. You probably have that much difference in your clothes." "You're gaining muscle. You've probably lost 5 or six pounds of fat." (That's when I snarkily commented on the body fat percentage.) "Keep working at it. It will add up." And my personal favorite as far as things to say which are not helpful at all: "Don't let it get you frustrated." Right... So through all of this, my eyes were welling up with tears. However, I refuse to cry in front of people, so I held it in and my face turned bright red and I started sweating instead. No one was fooled. I had to walk outside to cool off, ignoring my trainer who was in the adjacent gym asking me to tell him how I did.

I just can't believe that I'm not losing more weight. Usually you see a nice big loss in the first week or two of a weight loss attempt and then things slow down. If it slows down from here, I'm just going to get fatter. Or not get fatter, but keep all my current fat and just keep building muscle until I am the size of a car. I already only have a handful of shirts and two pairs of pants that fit me. No one sells car sized clothes. (I only wear a size 14, but, excuse me, I'm ranting.) They always say, "You didn't put on all that weight overnight, you're not going to lose it overnight." Well, does the fact that I gained 40 lbs. practically overnight (or over a couple of months) mean that I get to lose it that quickly? I really wish it did. When I was on the South Beach Diet, I lost 22 lbs. in 9 weeks (Phase I). I'm so tempted to go back on that diet, but I know I wouldn't have enough energy to do my workouts without any carbs.

The trainers had some suggestions as far as what I could do to guarantee I lose weight next week. There's nothing tweakable in my diet, so that leaves exercise. They want me to do cardio for an hour, three times a week, on top of the circuit training sessions with the trainer. I've only fit in one extra cardio session for each of the last 2 weeks. Then they all got excited and said if I really want to see results, I should start doing an hour of cardio seven days a week on top of the sessions with the trainer. Maybe that would be a little more reasonable of a proposition for me if I worked in a gym all day, like they do. They are all nice people, and I appreciate that they are trying to help and that they didn't get uncomfortable when I looked like I was going to cry, I'm just really frustrated.

I've been overweight my entire life. I remember my aunt squeezing my "chubby thighs" when I was still in diapers. I started getting made fun of for being chubby when I entered preschool at age two and it just got worse year after year. Then, once I was too old for name calling, guys just wouldn't date me. Which led to years of irresponsible behavior and desperation. I'm just so freaking tired of this. I want to have a normal body (not huge American normal, normal normal).

By the way, the tears I managed to reign in earlier are in full force now. God, I can't wait to get back on my meds.