Daily Wahnsinn

After March’s WIT being a bit of a bummer, I was ecstatic to step on the scale today as part of my monthly weigh in. I had a really good feeling about it, judging from how my clothes fit and how I generally felt. My guess was that I was bloated and retaining water in March, so I had hopes for the April weigh in. Not to spoil the April goal reflection, but I failed on the Do not step on the scale part of the plan. I did weigh in a couple of times on my bathroom scale. The results had been great though fluctuating so I knew whatever the scale would say at my Weight Watchers meeting, I was fine.

Anyway. I was shocked when I stepped on the scale and it gave me 137.6 lbs. That’s A) a lot less (weight & more weight loss) than I had anticipated and B) it’s fucking fantastic. I expected to see maybe 139 – 138.5 if I was going for it. I was ecstatic! I lie. I still AM ecstatic. I lost 4.2 lbs in April, which is huge, given how close to goal I am. Everybody who’s ever tried (or is currently trying) to lose the last couple of pounds, knows how hard it is. If you have a lot of pounds to lose, they tend to come off quickly at first, especially if you move from a poor diet and inactive lifestyle to a good diet and at least some exercise. Mine certainly did. The closer to goal you are and the more your body is accustomed to good habits, the harder your body seems to make you work for it.

This result excites me for a couple of reasons:

• April hasn’t been a good month for me. My job was crazy, I was injured and my eating left a lot of room for improvement. While these are not things I plan on making a habit, it’s reassuring that I can through tough times and come out just fine. A crazy period in my job – they’re unfortunately unavoidable – does not equal putting the weight back on. It doesn’t mean that once I maintain and I get busy again, I will undo all the work I’ve done. I got this.
• For the first time ever in my life, I’m within the BMI range I’m supposed to be. I know that BMI is an imperfect metric and that you can be within your suggested range and be unhealthy. You can also be outside your suggested range and be healthy. I know that. Still, I do believe that the BMI is a general guideline that helps you assess where you should approximately be. When I first started losing weight, I was at a BMI of 34.7. I am now officially at 24.4. I never thought I’d ever get there. I worked so hard for this and taking this milestone feels amazing and rewarding and fuck yeah, I’m proud of myself. My total weight loss is now 58.2 lbs. Only a couple more to go.

I guess my true highlight of the day was something else though. For those not familiar with Weight Watchers meetings, at the end of each meeting, the meeting leader will call out celebrations, where members are encouraged to speak up about their scale and non-scale victories. Today, this one woman in my group reached goal. She lost 60 lbs in total and when she originally started losing weight, it was due to her doctor giving her the choice to either lose weight or take all these pills to fight her obesity-related diseases. She didn’t want to take the pills and instead worked on losing weight. When she spoke about her journey today, she was close to tears because she was so relieved. She’s a regular at the meeting I go to and I know how hard the last couple of pounds have been for her. It was beautiful to see she finally got to where she wanted to be.

A few more cool things:

• I finally signed up as a volunteer for an upcoming race to get my 9 + 1 volunteer credit. I’ll be a course marshal at the UAE Healthy Kidney 10k in May. Fun, right?
• Tomorrow’s the draw for the non-guaranteed entry to the 2012 NY Marathon. I don’t have any hopes to get in, but we’ll know about that tomorrow.
• I ordered something from Etsy the other day and because the USPS are idiots, they kept trying to deliver to the wrong building, even though I confirmed multiple times that the address was accurate. I finally called their customer service last night and got very upset with them over the phone – after it took a small miracle until I was even able to speak to a person. But apparently that helped. Package is waiting for me at home. YAY!
• I also worked out this morning, even though Tuesdays is my rest day and I almost did not. I have friends coming to town this weekend and I don’t know how that’ll affect my workout schedule. I didn’t want to take any chances and since I didn’t really need a rest day (I hadn’t worked out for 6 days in a row, so I was fine). I almost skipped the workout because I had a hard time getting up this morning, telling myself I was going to do it tonight. At one point, I actually said out loud to myself, “You know yourself, you’re not gonna do it.” Then I got up and was awesome.