Hat on Top, Coat Below
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Weight Wait
December 13, 2002
Tomorrow I’m going to Weight Watchers for my December weigh-in. I’m curious to see what the scale will say. When I went last month, I was 151.5 on my scale and 153.2 on theirs (if only they’d let us go to meetings nude!). Given the ups and downs reflected in my weight log recently, I’m not sure what to expect tomorrow. I’ve been back on program since we got home from Colorado; will three days of control offset five days of vacation? It doesn’t seem very likely. Sure, a ski trip involves more exercise than a lot of trips do, but all that activity helps me work up a real appetite that the food service people are happy to help me satisfy. I eat things on ski trips that I rarely eat at home, big oatmeal raisin cookies and salt and vinegar potato chips being particular favorites, along with pretty much anything served in a bread bowl—chili, chicken soup, beef stew. Cookies and chips in a bread bowl would be the perfect ski lunch for me. At least this trip, I kept track of what I ate, which I think helped me keep my quantities consumed a little more reasonable. I still had cookies, but only one a day instead of two or three, and I entirely skipped some things I decided weren’t worth the calories, like the 20-ounce bottles of sports drinks I used to have every day on the slopes.
So tomorrow will tell. Maybe I’ll be up, maybe I’ll be down, maybe I’ll be the same as last month or last week. In any case, I’ll be a lot better off than I was a year ago. I really noticed the difference on this last trip. Walking from the car to the hill in ski boots while carrying my skis and poles and breathing the thin mountain air didn’t make me want to collapse in a heap at the ticket window like it has before. Bending over to buckle my boots wasn’t a struggle at all, and I didn’t have to unzip my bibs so I could breathe any time I sat down for more than two minutes. The knee I tweaked a few years ago also didn’t give me any problems, though that might be as much a result of the glucosamine and chondroitin I’ve been taking as the weight loss.
I feel comfortable in my body now in a way I haven’t in a long time. I’m still trying for 140 pounds, but I’m starting to think it’ll be fine if I don’t get there. I’m already in the WW goal range for my height, so I could just request a new, higher goal weight (I’ve done this once already, and it’s no big deal) and not have to pay for meetings anymore. My BMI is in the normal range, so losing the last ten or thirteen or whatever it is pounds is more about vanity than health. I’ll look a little better and fit into slightly smaller clothes at 140 than I do now. I’m not sure I’ll feel any better, though. I’m not ready to give up my current goal yet, but I can see there might be a point where I will be. Maybe instead of looking at that as a failure, I can look at it as finally knowing what’s right for me.
