Hot By Thirty

In which I humiliate my own self on my own website for the FINAL TIME.

Well, at least THIS website.

I give you the Before Pictures:

*OHGODOHGODOHGODHYPERVENTILATESKYDIVINGSELFESTEEMOHGODOHGOD*

This is on my honeymoon. Oregon Coast, for those of you interested.

What am I doing? Attempting to flap away?

This is also on my honeymoon. I think in the redwoods in California?

Looking at this you'd have no idea I agonized over every piece of clothing I brought.

This is a year and a half later, our second Christmas party:

WHAT WAS I THINKING WEARING THAT? OMG OMG OMG

Having my hair done for my friend's wedding. The wedding for which I lost weight for the first time ever. A whole 8 pounds, if I recall. I was so proud of myself.

HELLO BOOBAGE!

That was in July 2005 and I think I was about 175. After this the pictures get better. That fall I started trying to lose more weight. By summer 2006 I was down to around 160. I got pregnant with Jack that fall. It took me 9 months to lose the baby weight, which is right when I found out I was pregnant with Molly. Molly is now 10 and a half months, and I'm nine pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight.

The After Pictures:

March 09. I picked this one because it shows my face no longer does that super attractive Accordion Flesh thing when I smile. Sure, I had the standard double chin, but I had TRIPLE CHEEKS. In this picture the triple cheeks are no longer my most prominent facial feature. You = no idea what I'm talking about. Me = THRILLED.

Jack = DONE with the picture taking.

Right before we left for our anniversary weekend.

My MOM bought that dress for me. I KNOW!

Right before we left for my birthday party.

Could I try and stand MORE awkwardly? GOD.

I'm not sure if you'll believe me when I say I couldn't have done it without you, BUT I SWEAR THAT IT IS TRUE. There were so many days, weeks even, where the only thing that kept me from shoving a chocolate cake whole down my throat was the fact that I would have to confess to the crime on my stupid website. So I'm serious. I am so grateful. So very very very grateful. Thank you for reading and commenting. You were encouraging and challenging and I will desperately drag you all back here for Hot By Thirty-Five or Losing The Baby Weight AGAIN or How The Hell Did I Gain All This Back? or WHATEVER incarnation this website takes next. 

But I think I'm done for now. Thank you. Smooch.

For my own edification

Thirty = Done.

Hot = ?

154.5. That's half a pound above my lowest weight. Nine pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight. I'll take it.

My highest not-pregnant weight was 189. I suspect I might have weighed more than that at some points, but I wasn't in the habit of stepping on scales back then. 189-154 = 35 pounds lifetime total. I will also take that.

I've dropped from size XL shirts to size L (see previous post, it's not gonna get better than that) and from size 14 pants to size 10 with a few 8s thrown in for kicks.

I've more or less stopped biting my nails. A victory in its own right. (I credit being pregnant, which makes your nails AWESOME even if you are a SERIAL NAIL BITER like myself.) 

My hair is still falling out all over the place. Must ask about that thyroid issue. Bald = Not Hot.

I ran into an overhanging blackberry bramble on my morning run. Small bloody dots all over my forehead and cheeks = Not Hot.

I managed to stay within a half pound of my lowest weight even though I ate like a diabetic in a chocolate factory all week, including an entire box of Reeses Pieces at Harry Potter, an entire plate of Red Robin french fries, an entire bag of chocolate chips and all of the chocolate oat bars my neighbor brought over the other day. I credit my ability to stay within a half pound to the fact that I exercised every day and didn't really eat anything else. Perhaps this is my new Maintenance Plan.

I took my rings to get resized last week. My engagement ring was 8.25. I am sizing it and my anniversary band down to a 6.5. I hope to God it fits. And that I don't gain all my weight back any time soon because DUDE it is EXPENSIVE to resize your rings!

When I wear skirts and it's warm outside I don't get those awful horrible little chafing marks on the insides of my thighs anymore. That's a nice image, isn't it? YOU'RE WELCOME.

I can run three miles without stopping. I don't LIKE running three miles without stopping but I can DO IT. I am positive I'm in better shape than I was as a sixteen-year-old forward on the basketball team who was conditioning, drilling and running lines after school every day. HONEST. I am, for sure, thinner.

Shred Level Two no longer makes me want to die. I can even do that whole minute of plank twists. However, you do not see me progressing to Shred Level Three.

I would like to lose more weight. Just because. But I'm not going to Fret about it. I'm feeling pretty swell at Size Ten and I don't have the funds to restock the wardrobe in yet another size. See? I can't AFFORD to lose more weight.

I worked hard and I like the results.

Hot = Done

Boobs

I am probably going to cry while I write this and then if I manage to click "Publish" I will die of instant humiliation, but maybe some of you know what I'm talking about, maybe you've been there. And this is such a huge part of this weight loss thing - my LIFE, really - and I've been feeling like I can't really close up shop on this website unless I get this out. So.

Maybe I was never fixated on my weight because I was spending all my body image-related energy on my bra size. My mother bought me my first bras in fifth or sixth grade and it's been a dysfunctional relationship ever since. I never knew what to do with these suckers. I mean, it's not like you can really hide them.

I "went out with" a slew of pre-pubescent boys in junior high and from my nearly 30-year-old perch I'll go ahead and chalk that up to being well-endowed. In high school I struggled to find a sports bra solution that worked- I ended up just wearing regular old sports bras OVER my real ones, something I was totally ashamed of until one of the coaches noticed and said she had to do the same thing. I was never teased or singled out for embarrassment in school, but I was mortified plenty of times by lewd and cruel high school boys. Objectified, shamed, with a tiny twinge of relief because at least there was something about me boys found attractive. 

I wasn't thin, but I was a totally different size on top than I was on the bottom. Things never fit me. Sometimes even the largest size wouldn't button or zip up. I never dreamed of wearing anything strapless. I'd seen those strapless bras and there was no way one of those things would work on my body. My friends would talk about not needing a bra, or they just wouldn't wear one after a Friday night game and we were going out in search of dinner - what a totally foreign world.

I gained weight in college and I just got bigger and bigger. But you know, by that point I wasn't even noticing. This was just me. Who I am. The way it is.

Sometimes I'd go bra shopping and the 38Ds wouldn't fit. It never occurred to me that I was BIGGER than that. I just thought I had to find a different brand. You know how they all fit differently.

I asked my aunt to make my wedding dress. Partly because I wanted my aunt to make my wedding dress. She'd made my prom dress, which I loved, and I wanted almost the exact same thing, only in white. I thought it would be so special, to get married in something made especially for me, by a family member I loved. I also wanted my aunt to make my wedding dress so I wouldn't have to suffer the humiliation of going to wedding dress stores, where there appeared to be only strapless dresses, and not fitting into them. I know, now, that much heavier women than me have been married in strapless dresses, that they have a million sizes, that there are all sorts of torture devices for shoehorning any body into things, but I didn't know that then. The thought of trying on dresses in those stores that don't have mirrors in the dressing rooms - I just wanted to die. And even with my aunt making my dress, I don't know how many times she cut the bodice before it fit.

A couple years later a friend of mine asked me to be in her wedding and my first thought wasn't, "I'd be HONORED!" it was "Would I have to wear a strapless dress?" I couldn't. I just couldn't.

There were so many things I couldn't (or wouldn't) wear. So many requirements. I remember my mom saying something about how I didn't let my weight keep me from doing anything I wanted to do (this is after I'd lost it, she's not THAT mean) and that's true. I knew I was on the heavier side, but I wasn't all that upset about it. What I WAS upset about was my stupid bra size. Talk about holding yourself back. LITERALLY.

Several years, two children and 30ish pounds later, I have a new bra size. I never thought this was possible, folks. And yes, I do have nursing to thank (well, first I must thank nursing for the size F nursing bras HOLY GOD) for part of it. Post-nursing boobs are not a happy topic. But between that and losing weight I found myself in the department store a month or two ago buying bras a full cup size smaller than my old ones. And I tell you internet, NOTHING felt better than that. Not fitting into my pre-baby clothes, not fitting into a new pants size, not wearing a bathing suit in public, NONE of that compared to the day I found myself in a Target dressing room trying on a size Medium button down shirt AND BUTTONING IT. Yes I DID have a full on Ugly Cry in the dressing room.

I have known very few people with this problem and it's been a lonely and embarrassing place to be. I never thought I'd be able to wear some of those cute summer empire-waist tops, just like I thought I'd never be able to run a mile without stopping. The boob thing trumps the mile thing by... miles. 

...so I was sitting here deciding whether or not to post this collection of random sentences when I decided to get my wedding dress out of its box and try it on. For kicks. And. Oh you guys it is huge. It's the simplest plainest empire-waist white dress in the world, with a top that was pinched and darted and fitted and yanked into the right place about twelve million times before the wedding and now, this dress that was made to my exact measurements no longer fits. It gapes. It falls off my shoulders. It's too wide and too long and I cried again. I cried because I remember the embarrassment of trying on the first draft and the frustrated frown on my aunt's face, and I cried because I felt sorry for and proud of myself, all at once. A relieved, triumphant, apologetic, non-linear cry.

Wellllllll

I'm feeling like I might as well call it good, devoted readers of Hot By Thirty. I hit 154 today, and then I went and had a margarita or three (not blended, surprisingly tasty) and a brownie the size of my face. And did not feel guilty. Well, not much.

I know I've still got a bit over a week to go, but I'm due for the time of the month in which I tend to GAIN weight no matter what I do, and I'm thinking that's not going to work out so well for Culmination of Hot By Thirty Day. The motivation, it is dissipating.

I feel like I have a thousand things to say about this whole weight loss journey (can I call it and still keep you as friends?) but then I get overwhelmed about how to say 1000 things in one post and so I don't write anything. I know that's not the right way to go about it. I should write a few things piece by piece, even if no one reads it. I feel like I need to write a few things down, maybe for Future Me, who might be trying to lose baby weight again and need some hope.

My treadmill is still broken, but I'm finding ways to run outside a few times a week, and it turns out I prefer it to the treadmill. (Will have to work on that once the seasons change.) I'm shredding a little more often and found a huge amount of motivation to do so when one day Phillip said my shoulders looked different. If there's any reason my shoulders look different it's because of the effing chair squat with a V raise, so bring it Jillian.

I fit into my sister's old fat clothes. This is some kind of psychological victory for me. In fact, I am wearing a pair of her old pants. The fact that these would be down around her ankles right now means nothing to me, because my sister has always been, in my mind, Tiny and now I AM FITTING INTO HER PANTS.

I bought a bikini. That I might wear in public. We'll see.

I went for a run a week or two ago that made me cry. (Gak, now very worried about ability to stay friends.) But seriously. It wasn't very long or far or difficult, but I was running, outside, where people could see me, without stopping, and I sprinted to the finish and I was so proud of myself.

I AM so proud of myself. I know I must sound so obnoxious, but I AM. I keep thinking back to high school. I am just dying to tell that girl what she can do. That she will be in better shape when she's 30 than she is after four years of running lines every afternoon at the end of practice. It makes me cry.

It's tied up with anxiety stuff, with the fiction I've started writing, with how confident I feel about myself and my relationships and my job as a stay at home mom. It's TOTALLY tied up with leaving my 20s behind. I know it's just a number, but then it feels like such an important number.

Yeah, I'm scared about what will happen if/when I'm able to let go of this admittedly OCD focus on weight loss. I WANT to let go. I don't feel like it's a particularly healthy mindset, to be so emotionally invested in that number. At the same time, it's what's made me successful. I'm still 4 pounds away from my goal, but I'm okay with that. I'm 9 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight. I haven't been this size since 8th grade. I do not do not do not do not want to go back.

These are all things I've wanted to say, planned to say, meant to say later. But I'm saying them now, because it seems like I don't have time for this blog anymore (and that's sort of the point). I still want to post something for The Day. I want to post before and after pictures, which is going to embarrass the hell out of me, but I NEED TO. It's not just my OCD, it's the accountability I've found online, knowing that I was going to weigh in and tell you what I did that week. My whole life I've needed to document things and remember things and I want to make this official. Here's 180 something pounds. Here's 154. For my own benefit, even though I can't really tell you what that benefit is.

I don't feel skinny or super fit. (Probably because I'm not. HA.) What I do feel is a million times healthier. I can feel the difference in what I can do physically. My body is different, and not just because I've had two kids. I'm not scared of keeping up with other people. I don't feel like I need to cover up my size with jokes. I'm still bigger than the two friends I've told you about before, but I no longer feel like people are wondering what the fat white girl is doing hanging out with the hot skinny Asian girls. And just writing that makes me want to cry.

I am not afraid of diabetes. I should write about my dad sometime. I don't know if I'd be doing this if one day my dad hadn't thrown out all the sweets, switched to nonfat milk and bought a Nordic Track that he started using every single stinking day.

I think I am done for now. I hope I still have something left to write about next week. Maybe I will be funny and not so sappy. I hate sappy. I'm sorry. The end.

Six to go

Hey look! A weigh in post! THESE THINGS STILL EXIST!

The two or three people who read this website (hi!) left some excellent advice on the last post and I took it all to heart. I felt more determined to REALLY TRY and also more determined to BE OKAY if I couldn't pull it out. And then I took Jess's suggestion to write down everything I eat aaaaand I am down one pound this week. 156. WOO!

Things I did differently:

1. I didn't run every day. I made myself do hateful Level 2 on the Shred video on alternating days. Except for Friday when I was visiting my parents and yesterday when I was too busy salivating over politically-incorrect jewelry (see today's post.) On those days I really watched myself on what I ate, but didn't give myself a ton of grief for not exercising.

2. I wasn't sure what writing down what I ate would DO but I know it's highly recommended so I tried it anyway. Turns out it's not just the Shame Factor, you know, having to write down that you ate ten spoonfuls of peanut butter out of the jar. It actually sort of helped me ORGANIZE what I eat. I tend to eat the same stuff every day, especially the same kinds of snacks, and writing things down helped me remember that oh, I usually eat that granola bar as an afternoon snack, if I eat it NOW I can't have it THEN.

3. For some reason I stopped eating peanut butter out of the jar. Well. Not as OFTEN.

4. I forgot to buy my favorite low carb ice cream bars at the grocery store last week.

5. On Saturday I woke up early, but I didn't have to feed anyone (my kids stayed with my parents, it was DIVINE) and I knew Phillip wouldn't want to get up for hours, so I laced up my shoes and RAN AROUND THE FREAKING LAKE. It's 2.8 miles. It was my Running Goal. I've run farther than that, though not routinely, so I knew TECHNICALLY I could do it. But it's the LAKE. Where all the RUNNERS are. Runners I've watched for TEN YEARS while thinking, "Duuuuude, there is NO WAY I am EVER doing that." But I did. I really had to push myself on the last half mile or so, and then I was fairly certain I was going to die right there in the parking lot, but I did it, in about 30 minutes, and if I hadn't lost any weight after THAT I was going to be SOMEWHAT ANNOYED.

That's it.

There are six more Mondays between now and my 30th birthday. I don't believe at ALL that I am going to lose one pound a week until then, but I think I could lose a FEW. Onwards and upwards!

Triumph! With a side of cake!

I was a half pound under my Goal Weight on Friday. Then Valentine's Day happened (as noted, in chocolatey detail, below) and, uh, I'm a half pound over my goal weight today. I've decided that the official response to this is a big fat WHATEVER and doing a little jig ANYWAY because I lost the baby weight AND I ate my weight in Godiva and fancy cake and am only a half pound over! WIN WIN!

Like Charlotte said in response to the post below, a life without cake is a life not worth living.

(Especially THIS cake. OMG.)

So! Even though I am not yet Hot By Thirty I am WELL ON MY WAY and I seriously could not have done it without the crazy few who read this tripe. I know that's cheesy (mmm, cheese) but there were plenty of weeks when I refrained from eating something or forced myself to exercise because I was going to have to TELL YOU what I did. And I didn't want anyone thinking, "Dude, does she think getting hot by thirty is going to happen by MAGIC?" So really, would not have happened without you, and when you all come to visit I shall take you for a piece of cake.

Thank you.

I'm going to keep on keeping on, although my goal is a lot less defined. I'm not exactly sure what I'm working towards now, except for the fact that I am still a Chub and could definitely stand to lose a few. Also I really like having a place to geek out over my silly treadmill triumphs and to share my extremely non-academic thoughts on nutrition, a place that is not my mommy- and everything else- blog. You know? Hot By Thirty shall exist, at least until I turn thirty. And then we'll reevaluate. Again. YOU=ON THE EDGE OF YOUR SEAT.

Kisses! (The chocolate kind!) I'm off to hose down the children.