Thursday, January 29, 2009

Weighty Issues

So even though I've had a lot of upheaval in my life over the past couple of months, I have kept my dieting in check. I have stuck with the WW plan, and even find myself doing better on it now that I don't have my former fiance breathing down my neck about it.

What I think is so incredible about the whole thing is that I have lost nearly 35 pounds since September without once stepping foot into a gym. Don't let me mislead you, I still exercise, but it isn't the exhaustion-inducing two hour-plus marathons of my past. I walk the dog, shovel the sidewalks (yay January in New York!) or my favorite, ExerciseTVOnDemand. I do workout videos in my livingroom. Yes, folks, I am one of those women jazzercising on the rug. Well, perhaps not jazzercising, but you get it, right?

I've been hesitant to set a final goal weight since I started my WW fling for two reasons. First, I don't want to feel like a failure if I don't get to that goal as I intend. Secondly, it would be a very large amount of weight, as I started at 253 pounds. Overwhelming, I know.

WW has had the greatest impact in regards to my mental changes. I have lost my mental heaviness, my feelings of being overwhelmed by where I am. I am not afraid of not reaching the number goal I set, because I know that anything, anything less than what I started at, will make me successful in what I'm doing for my life.

I do a lot of thinking when I walk my dog. Sometimes I pray with a little pocket rosary I made (a habit I picked up when my dad was in ICU), sometimes I think about where I want to go in life, sometimes I think just about how strong I am as a person, and the things I know I can accomplish. I've been letting this sink in for a few days: My goal on Weight Watchers is to lose 100 pounds. And I'm going to do it without a gym membership.

That isn't to say I won't use a gym. I have access to one on the campus of the college I go to, and have plans to go twice a week with the best group of friends a girl could have. I also live in a town with four different gyms, whose one-week trial passes I intend to use strategically throughout my journey. I can also swim at the local college pool for a very small donation. And I always have my standby- Fiona, a leash and my neighborhood.

Losing weight isn't going to be cheap. I pay $40 a month for the honor of attending WW meetings. I think I want to do this to show myself that I don't need to be bored in the gym to have a hot and healthy body. There are so many things I can do on my own, for free or nearly so, that I don't need to pour every last dime I have into an exercise mill.

And lets be honest, I'm in college, working 25 hours a week and paying all of the household bills (power bill alone is $300+ over the winter) on my own. I don't have the money for a gym membership, even if I wanted one!

Letting the Dust Settle

A few days after I posted my first blog (I'm gonna do this three times a week, minimum!, I said) my dad was in a near-fatal car crash.

He's been borderline diabetic for a while, and what the doctors are thinking is that he had some sort of diabetic shock-type episode. He rear-ended an 18 wheeler hauling a 40 foot roll-off garbage dumpster. Ouch.

He's alive, and walking less than two months later, and I thank God in Heaven for all of the miracles he worked with my father. By all rights, I should be mourning his death, not celebrating his life.

I am in mourning though. Having this stress in my life allowed me to see who and what was really important to me, what was working and what wasn't. My life with my fiance- it wasn't working. We were in break-up mode for a month, and officially broke things off just after the new year.

He is still living in my home. I can accept that he isn't the right one for me, and me for him, but I'm having such a hard time accepting that we spent three years together. We were engaged to be married in less than a year. How did we change so much without noticing that we got that close to lifelong vows without realizing the severity of our problems? It still hurts me now, even though I've mentally moved on, that he couldn't love me enough to help me make it work between us. I know the divorce rate is high, but I (naively, I suppose) think that if people would just work harder on things with eachother, then everyone could live beautiful, happy lives in wedded bliss.

He should be out in about three weeks. Too long, from what my nearest and dearest tell me. All told, we will have lived together for two months past our expiration date. I hate every last second of it, but I think it helps me in as many ways as it hurts me. I want a clean break from him, and my sanity nearly demands it, but my heart, the part of me that can't help but to still love him, is ok with him still being at home. It just needs a little more time to let go of what could have been.