Excuse me, Miss - how long have you been playing the accordion?

I just saw a picture of myself from an event we attended a few weeks ago, and I am shocked at how much weight I have not lost.  How dreadful. All the walking I’ve been doing to hit 15-20,000 steps a day hasn’t made a visible dent, unless you count the one in my stomach from these jeans cutting into my flesh.  

Science says that there are more atoms that make up our eyes than all the stars in the universe.  That never fails to amaze me because, wow, there are a shit ton of stars in the universe. Anyway, the transmission signal from the optic nerve to my brain must be a little faulty in its wiring, because for the past few months of walking my ass off every single day since getting a Fitbit, I thought it was pretty obvious that I’ve lost 11  10 pounds. I thought me and Jessica Simpson were on our way to becoming each other’s spirit animals.

   http://www.extratv.com/2012/11/26/jessica-simpson-weight-watchers-diet-revealed/

                                                                                      Splash News / Getty Images

Sadly, that horse is out the gate way ahead of me. #reversebodydysmorphia   #overconfidencegonewrong

 

I haven’t always been big. There was this one time during the summer of my 18th year that I got hit with a weird thyroid issue that caused me to lose a massive amount of weight within a 3 month period. It also caused my eyes to bug out of my head, and I’m pretty sure it looked like I was harboring a fugitive alien fetus in my neck (scientific name: goiter), but I dropped down to 115 pounds. 115! I hadn’t seen that number (or my collarbone) since the toddler years.

Here's one of the few remaining proof of 115 pound life photos from that time period: 

 

                                       Me at my 18th birthday party - Dysentery never felt so pretty

115! That number (and my collarbone) have long since gone the way of the dodo.

Alas, the moment was fleeting, as I soon contracted an incredibly unpleasant case of amoebic dysentery the day before my 18th birthday celebration. The Public Health Department was unable to identify the source and determined it had come from either: (a) a double chili cheeseburger I had from Tommy’s OR (b) a Burrito Supreme I had from Taco Bell (both were consumed within a few hours of each other).

 

                                               When I make bad choices, my bowels pay the price

 

Dysentery swiftly set off a chain of mysterious events that would completely eradicate the thyroid problem. After a brief stint in the hospital in which I was able to successfully procure several boxes of Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake bars via a complicated system of secret hand signals and a cuneiform alphabet of my own creation (NO THANKS to Nate who refused to take part in the smuggling ring), I returned home, and managed to gain 12 pounds in a 3 day period. At my next appointment, the endocrinologist whooped for joy and declared me cured. I think I was skinny for about 5 months total.

                                             So damn good

 

With our upcoming nuptials, I am hesitant to say that I plan on losing X amount of weight by that time. As far as goal setting goes, I’m an expert. Achieving them -  that's more hit or miss. I’m frequently distracted and easily unmotivated. We may be coming up on two years since the loss, but I still walk a thin line between hope and despair, darkness and light, sanity and madness.  It's hard to set anything in stone when you always feel like you're a few Mother's Day commercials away from a  complete mental breakdown. I suspect it will be that way for quite some time. I’m just all over the place right now.

But that’s a different topic for another day. We’re talking about weight here, people. Judging by how many times I’ve brought this up in previous posts, and as evidenced by the mountains of spiral notebooks that detail every morsel I’ve put into my mouth since 1994, this obviously is an issue.

So I’ve decided not to sit down for pictures ever again. When I can’t even tell where my stomach begins and ends on the well-worn roadmap of my body, it’s time to retire the seated pose. From now on, I'll just stand with half of myself concealed, even if it means involving someone else’s unwilling child or pet as a prop. Don’t get me wrong (and stop judging, geez!) - I DO plan on losing weight. It's just that self-sabotage is the name of my game when I suspect I'm on a roll with something:
 
Conversation #1

Me: Well, according to Weight Watchers, I can have 25 points a day.  
 

Me, too: 25 points?  You mustn't accept such limitations on your freedom! Where do you think you are? North Korea? This is America!

Conversation #2:
Me: Someone wrote an article about you and your singing in the OC Register! Let's keep the momentum going and do more shows!

Me, too: Nah. It's time to take a break for the next 6 years.
 

Oh, what the hell.  It's time once again to re-examine my food choices and incorporate strength training into my workouts. No gimmicks or fads. This is not based solely on the fact that it would be nice not to have to don a 6-person tent on my wedding day....although, this IS kinda sexy:

No - I need to do it for my own health and for the sake of Ligaya’s future siblings.  Being overweight makes it harder to have a smooth pregnancy or even get pregnant in the first place.  It can also have a negative effect on the baby. I can control my weight. I can’t control what else may pop up during pregnancy, but I can control at least that.

That being said, I’m still never sitting down for a photo again until I’m sure my stomach won’t be mistaken for the folds of a deflated accordion.

Let the annoying wedding planning and weight gain/loss posts commence!

 

 

 

Love, Light, and Ligaya - CS