178.4 High School Reunion

Best Friends In High School

We returned late yesterday from my high school reunion and it was really a great event. There were about 150 people there including some spouses out of about 360 grads. This reunion was held at Foothill Park in Palo Alto and it turned out to be a wonderful place for the gathering. My biggest fear as we approached the park was that no one would be there, no one I remembered, but my fears quickly dissolved as we turned a corner and there was a large group of people chatting, smiling and looking like they were having a great time.

And, yes, we had all changed (see post "Don't Ever Change!" 8/16/10) and turned out to be a pretty interesting group of 68 year olds. My first boyfriend was there and when he told me he had become a nuclear physicist I was blown away! I wanted to say, "right, and I invented post-it notes", but luckily I didn't. He was for real. But when you are in 8th grade it's hard to imagine anyone that age becoming a nuclear physicist!

So how did I feel being with all these former classmates? I felt happy that I wasn't concerned with how I looked. (Well, of course I did worry a lot about what to wear!) I'm very sure I would have been more self conscious if I hadn't lost those 70 pounds. Most of the group was trim and lookin' good, so I just blended in in that regard.

What I'm really grateful for is that I didn't lose the weight for the reunion. I didn't even know there was going to be a reunion until about 5-6 weeks ago. I think if you lose weight for an event, it's good motivation, but what about maintaining the loss?

True Confession Time: I did order a glass of wine after the reunion because the adrenaline was still racy through my bloodstream at a high level, but, guess what? I drank about half of it and then gave it to Jeff. I think I'm really over the wine thing and am so thankful for that.

So now I need to lose 8 more pounds and I know I can do it. I don't have a lot of new and different things going on in my life right now, so it's time to spend more time exercising and paying attention to what I'm eating, very close attention.

192.0 The Secret!

Yesterday I went shopping! I was in a down mood but was trying to get my mind focused on some positives so off I went. When the sales gal asked me if I was looking for something in particular, I told her that I had lost 60 pounds and my closet was bare! I was ready to try anything on that appealed to me. I did find several things and in spite of my recent weight gain, could still fit into size 14 pants, so I was happy.

As she was ringing up the sale she told me that a couple of years ago she had lost quite a bit of weight. And, she went on, the secret to keeping it off was that she weighs herself everyday! Music to my ears ~ something I do now, and something I know I will do to maintain my weight loss. We parted best of friends.

Happy Easter! Happy Sunshine! Happy Spring!

195.2 So What's Going On?

I don't usually write that I liked a particular posting, but I did like yesterday's post. You know, when I sit down to write one of these posts for this blog, I often don't have any idea what I will write about. Oh, I knew that I would write about my first experience on the elliptical. And, I knew that I would write about my cankles. (Wow, that was a long time ago!) And I knew that I would write about reaching the 200 pound mark. But usually, I sit at the computer and ask my inner spirit to guide me, and then wait to see what my fingers type. It is very cool when it happens like that. That's what happened yesterday.

Today I know what I want to write about. It's that emotional piece that was driving most of my eating either too much food or junk food, unhealthy food. You've probably known people who are always taking weight off and then putting it back on. Yeah, I was one of those people for a large part of my life. Oprah is someone else that has publicly experienced that phenomenom. When I lost weight in the past, and I think they could build a life size replica of the Taj Mahal out of the the weight I have lost, I never did the work, the emotional work that would have helped me understand why I was eating out of control. My work with Jennifer has focused on that in a large part. If you have someone or can find someone to help you understand how your emotions play into what and how much you eat, I encourage to work with them. And if you aren't comfortable doing that, I encourage you to write, to journal everyday. Write about you and food: why you eat what you do, when do you eat, why are you eating, are you celebrating or dealing with stress and/or anxiety, what's going on in your life that's playing into your decisions around food. Basically think about the reasons that you use food that have nothing to do with nutrition. Once you get a clear picture of what is going on between you and food, you can then think about making changes. Try it and see what you learn about yourself. That knowledge should also really help keep the weight off once you have lost it. I am counting on that!