My fitness level has been improving; that I can tell through any number of assessments. But my weight has plateaud. Why is that?
I'm not proud to admit that I'm carrying around extra weight. A fair bit of it - not enough to get me a spot on next season's The Biggest Loser, but more than I'd like to admit. That was one of the impetuses for starting this blog, in fact: helping me to get fit and lose weight.
And I'm down with the whole fat acceptance thing. I truly am. I know that weight isn't a gauge of one's fitness. I know that some people can't help it. But I also know that I can. Before my first blood clot, I weighed around 25lbs less than I do right now. Maybe closer to 30lbs. I was a faster runner, I was a happier person, and I just in general felt better about myself.
After pulmonary embolism one and especially embolism two, I became sedentary. This was not entirely by choice - breathing hurt. Like, really hurt. I was reduced to tears often, and then I couldn't cry, because the desperate breathing of a crying jag set off more intense pain.
And of course, the lovely kicker that is coumadin: not only are there very, very few painkillers that I'm allowed to take, but I had to limit my green vegetables. At the time of embolism two, I was a vegetarian who doesn't like to cook, living in a small town. This meant brown meals, every meal: fried foods and pastas and breads. My weight crept up.
So, I was asking myself today, why is my weight not falling now? What am I doing wrong, and what can I change?
Then, I looked down, and this is what I saw in front of me. My lunch:
Yes. Greasy chicken on top of greasy pasta. In the cafeteria today, I walked past the salad line, past the fruit, past the sandwiches/wraps, past the yogurt, past the Muscle Milk/meal replacement drinks, and stopped at the hot food chicken/pasta station.
This is why I'm fat.
I'm asking my blog readers (the handful of you out there!) to keep me accountable: I can't keep going like this anymore. As I try to improve my health, I can't ignore my diet. I'm poisoning myself with crap food and undoing all the good I do with exercise.
First start: vegetarianism.
Yay Tracy! The food part is the part I suck at too (though my weaknesses are salty snacks and cake-like things...still not good for me). It's tough. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteWhat veggies can't you eat? I don't know how much cooking you want to do, but I could try to find you some recipes that we like. Though I know you've done the veggie thing before. Are you a lentil fan?
I have to limit my vitamin K because of the coumadin. So leafy greens are bad - I can have iceberg lettuce and I'm pretty liberal about foods that are "medium" K content (broccoli, avocados, lighter colored greens), but I can't have, for instance, spinach. Beans are a huge yes!
ReplyDeleteHow worried should I be about the negative effects of soy?
Soy! I'm actually not overly worried about soy, particularly the minimally-processed versions such as tofu or the actual beans. I've tried to cut down on our intake of soy-based fake meats, because that's where I get sketched out, and I've sometimes replaced my soy milk with rice or almond. But for the most part, if you're only doing a serving or two a day, I'm not worried. I will probably worry if/when I have to worry about being pregnant and eating soy, because that, I think, is actually an issue.
ReplyDelete