One Year Later.....I'm melting!

It's a year to the day that I last wrote on this blog.  I was in a frenzy trying to figure out what clothes I could take with me to Korea that were going to fit.  I was totally frustrated by an agonizingly slow rate of weight loss.  I was totally convinced that trying to lose any significant amount of weight as a woman in her mid-50s was impossible.  Guess what? I was totally wrong on that count.

A lot has happened since I last wrote here.  I suppose nobody out there necessarily knows or cares.  When one writes a blog entry once a year, the chances that anyone is still following are slim and none. It said that a picture is worth a thousand words.  So I figure this series of before and after pictures will tell my story better then I can.  Each set of pictures are taken approximately 1 year apart.  Each set marks the before and after of different areas of my life

Christmas

My sisters and I are very close.  We always spend Christmas together at my sister Anne's house.  It's a wonderful time of family being together with a lot of good food and drink.  It's three days of eating, drinking and being merry.  Christmas 2009 ended out being a very stressful event having fallen down the steps and breaking my ankle less then a week before.  Would I be able to manage a car ride to up state New York?  Come hell or high water I was going to make that trip.  No way I was spending Christmas at home.  Could I make my chocolate chunk cookies for my sisters, while dealing with a leg that I could put no weight on for two weeks?  The answer to those questions was yes.

Christmas Eve, 2009

Christmas 2010 was a whole lot easier.  With all the food and drink related activities it's not the time to be counting calories and obsessing about being perfectly on program.  I did not obsess, but I was mindful of how much I ate or drank at any particular meal.  The new me realizes she has to make choices.  Is it a slice of pecan pie or another one of my decadent chocolate chip cookies? No brainer. The cookies win out every time.

 Christmas Eve, 2010
Floyd and I together weigh less then I did a year ago.
(No; Floyd is not my dog.)

Tae Kwon Do has become a big part of my life style change. In 2007 when I was looking for something I could do in the winter that did not involve mind numbing laps in the pool, or trips to the gym. Tae Kwon Do filled the bill quite nicely.  It was something completely different and involved using my mind and body in a whole new way.  I thought it would be something I'd do for the workout and discipline, but not worry about belt promotions.  I should have known better.

The Tae Kwon Do dobak (uniform) is baggy and not the most flattering article of clothing.  "Does this outfit make me look fat?" Yes it does.  It was looking in the mirror and seeing the rolls of belly fat hanging over my uniform pants that motivated me to do something about it.  I wanted to get back to "fighting weight" by the time I tested for Black Belt in November 2010. My definition of "fighting weight" was my WW goal weight of 130.

May 17th, 2010

The above picture was taken at our retreat where the Black Belt test was taking place.  That was the Black Belt test I was originally scheduled to do.  Broken bones happen, so that was not my test.  Though it might as well been, since I did all the same stuff at the retreat that the testing candidates did.  I looked at it as a dress rehearsal for when my time would come in November.

My Black Belt test was Saturday November 20th, 2010.  On Friday November 19th I weighed in at my Weight Watchers meeting and tipped the scales at 127 pounds.  "Fighting weight" and then some.  It was few weeks later that the new Points Plus program came out.  35 daily points for maintenance, and another 49 weekly allowance points??  What? Were they kidding?

 May 19th, 2011

To go from First Degree Black Belt to Second Degree Black Belt there are 8 intermediate tests to be done.  Each test involves performing one or two new forms that have been learned since the previous test, and being prepared to do any form that one has learned as a color belt.  The above picture was taken after my second test. "Does this outfit make me look fat?"  No.  That because 28 pounds went away between pictures.

June 28, 2010

If you go back and reads old posts from this blog you will realize that at one point I was a serious cyclist and triathlete.  Sometimes priorities and interests change.  In April 2010 I had completed my physical therapy and started back on the road to Black Belt.  I think having had my share of mishaps on the bike I decided not to make much of an effort to become a cyclist who could go hammer with the guys.  I also wasn't convinced I would ever get back into the kind of shape I was in during 2003 - 2005.  Cycling last year consisted of an occasional ride on the Bronx River Parkway during Bicycle Sundays, or showing up at the tail end of the unemployment ride and coming back with the group. I thought 56 was too old to make yet another comeback after a setback like my broken ankle.

June 30, 2011

I was wrong about being too old to make a comeback.  I wasn't too old. I was just too overweight.  It's a lot easier getting back into cycling condition when one is not carrying around so much weight.  I started out slowly with short rides and meeting people at the end of rides.  A few weeks ago I decided I would just go up Central Avenue with the Gimbels ride and then head south once I got to North White Plains.  I got to North White Plains and decided "What the heck.  Let me see if I can make it to Otto's route.  The worst that will happen is I'll get dropped.  Then I'll go down Lake St."  I didn't get dropped so I just said "Screw it.  I'm finishing the ride."  Never mind it was going to be close to 10 miles longer then my previous long ride of the season.

Sometimes I just lose patience with easing back into things.  Here it is 3 weeks later and I've had put in 180+ miles for the week.  So much for the 10% rule.  I went from 30 miles a week to 75 to 180.  Do as I say, not as I do.  If you asked me how to get back into training form I'd tell you to take it slowly and ease back into the weekly mileage.  So much for my doing that.

One of the problems with bumping up my activity like that is not adjusting my food intake accordingly.  This weeks weigh in I was down another 1.8 pounds.  I don't want lose anymore weight.  I've been holding steady since March once I figured out how much I could eat, and what amount of weight was reasonably maintainable.  Now I've got to play around with my points again, and 

Here it is almost a year later and I'm getting ready to go on another trip.  Once again I'm dealing with my damn clothes don't fit.  However this time I'm coming across things that are too big. What a difference a year makes.

Hopefully I'll come back here more then once a year.  I'm not aiming to become the crazed triathlete I once was.  I'm running a little bit, but only 30-40 minutes.  I'm slow as crap.  I'm not sure I'm ready to do triathlons running 12 minute miles.  I was kind of hoping that wasn't going to happen until I hit my mid 60s.  I would like to perhaps do a low key sprint race somewhere before the end of the season, but it won't make or break me if I don't.