Long entry
August 19, 2003 
10:48 am
Remember how I said I had convinced my mother to join Curves with me? Well, it's definitely working for her. She's not losing weight, but she's losing inches. I can tell she looks skinnier and her clothes are looser, plus she's more able to do all the machines without wanting to die on the first time around. I'm glad she's getting into a fitness kick.
However, I seem to have created a monster. :P My mother was a hippie from the beginning of the 60s all through the 70s, and as such puts a lot of stock in un-tested, unproven "herbal" potions and pills. If it worked for Sue Lenker, 35, in Modesto California, then obviously It Is A Miracle and we MUST try it. Doesn't really matter what it's for -- bone density, cholesterol, mood swings, menopause. Recently this obsession has expanded to include weightloss. She just spent 20 minutes rhapsodizing some new Metabolife pill she bought called a "starch buster", made from kidney beans, that is 100% natural and 100% guaranteed to block your body from processing some starches.
Yah, and I have a bridge I can sell you for $50.
I know she won't let up until I try these pills. Anyone with a mother knows exactly the kind of pressure they can exert in order to force us (their adult children) into doing things we don't want to do. All I'm going to say is that when I keel over from kidney bean poisoning, she'll only have herself to blame.
You know how anorexics look at themselves and see themselves as fat even when they're skeletally thin? I think I have the opposite of that. I saw some pictures friends of mine had taken only two months ago and I just can't believe my size! I mean, I know I weigh 252 lbs, but I don't feel like I do, and even when I see myself in the mirror, I don't think I look like I weigh 252 lbs. But when I see pictures of myself, it really hits home. Ouch.
And on yet another note, I was thinking today about my goals and how long I want to take getting there. My first goal is to lose 30 lbs - that's 20% of what I need to lose, total. I've already lost 22 of those 30, so that leaves me with 8. I'd like to hit 30 lbs by this time next month or sooner.
Long term, I'd like to lose at a rate of 2 lbs per week, on average. I have 128 lbs to lose. That will put me at 50 lbs lost in December sometime, and 100 in June or so of next year. Christmas of 2004 should see me at my end-goal weight of 120 lbs.
I could lose the weight faster, I suppose, but I don't think I want to. I think I feel better losing it 2 lbs at a time, because it doesn't feel like I'm working to get it off. It's just something that's happening as a side effect of my normal life. (That's how it feels, understand.) So maybe in the coming months I'll add more to my routine, like working out six days a week instead of four. Or adding a walking regimen.
But I don't want to get caught in the web of pushing, working, or chasing my goal. It seems to me that people who lose weight that way are the ones who reach their goals and yet still are not happy, or who hate themselves just as much thin as they did fat - maybe because they spent too much time motivating themselves by thinking "i'm a loser for gaining weight this week", or "i'm a fat slug who can't lose weight". It's that whole idea of competing with myself that gets me, I think. I don't want to motivate myself with the dread of "losing" a battle. I want to motivate myself with the prospect of losing the weight!
I guess that's just the pattern in my life... spot the negative, choose the positive. I hope it works.
