173.8 Reality vs Something Magical

First I want to thank those who posted comments in response to yesterday's post. I really appreciate the support and caring reflected in the comments.

Well, my weight popped up again, a little. But I had a little wine and ate a little low calorie, low salt popcorn and there you have it. What I have to understand is that I have to pay attention, all the time.

I was out to lunch (some might say I'm always out to lunch!) today with some friends and shocking as it may seem, the conversation turned to weight issues. Actually, I didn't bring it up and I try not to bring that topic of conversation up when I am with my friends. But anyway, what I heard myself saying and I know to be true is that slender healthy women are always watching what they eat and that's why they are slender and healthy. It's a no-brainer except for those of us who think that something magical has happened in their lives so they don't have to pay attention.

After lunch I headed over to my nail place and had, as my daughters say, a mani and a pedi. I can't possibly be on TV without doing that:). Yes, I am getting excited! Thursday is the big day.

171.8 Pay Attention, Sue!

I just looked back through my posts to see when it was that I weighed this much and it was more than a month ago. The good news is that since reaching my goal I've been able to maintain my weight around the 170 mark pretty well. The bad news is that I've bumped up and I need to pay attention. I need to pay attention. One more time, I need to pay attention.

Now I could go through a litany of reasons why this fate has befallen me, and I will because I need to be aware of why I think this has happened. Yes, it's about salt, it's about too many nuts just before bed, and it's about being a little too cocky about how I've been handling food options. It's also about less exercise due to weather and PT constraints. It's about the fact my walking buddy left for about a month. (Thankfully she's back!) So I'm back to the basics, and returning to the stricter discipline. It's time to reverse this trend.

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.