Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Some kilos to kick

I have been thinking about weight a fair bit of late. This is how the weight-loss process works for me: it begins as a niggle, then bothers me and bothers me some more until I think, "Right, I am going to lose some weight" and then I make a start. I am always pleased with how I go and, without fail, I think, "Why didn't I start earlier?".
I'm almost at the point of starting again on a weight-loss kick. I did Weight Watchers most of last year and really loved it. It's the second time I've done WW and frankly it works. Very well. Slow and steady weight loss, great recipes, easy to make new habits.
It's just the getting there ...
I'm nearly motivated to begin all over again.

***

I'd done WW before E (in fact, up until I fell pregnant with him). I think I lost about 7 kilos, which took me to 62 kilos. For someone my height, 62 is bang on a BMI of 25 and, well, just feels good. Not fat, not skinny - just right.
Of course, after having E the weight issue hung around for a while. The expectation that the kilos would "just fall off" with breastfeeding did not (unfortunately!) materialise. Bummer.
So I got back on the WW horse. At my first weigh-in I was 69.9 kilos. I chipped away at it for six months or so, just eating well and doing mild exercise (I don't do gyms - walking and cycling only, thanks).
At my lightest I was 58 kilos (two kilos under my goal weight of 60). And damn that feels good. I'd not been that light for a few years, the compliments flow, the energy improves, all is hunky dory.
After at a while I started loosening up. I experienced this wondrous sensation of being able to have "bad" weeks of not watching my points, consuming lots of wine and STILL remaining the same weight. Could this be my new weight set-point, I wondered?

HA!

Sadly, no. The "I'll just eat whatever" mindset remained while the low weight did not. Like boiling a frog, it crept back on slowly, slowly. And I've had no motivation to actually halt the process, despite all the hard work I put in to actually lose the weight in the first place (how frustrating!).
I am one of those (unlucky) people who put weight on round the stomach. It's never an issue round the bottom or the thighs or really anywhere except the middle.
I was reading the Sunday paper last week and I saw a little piece about the government launching a campaign to encourage people to decrease their waist measurement for health reasons. It said women should have a waist measurement of no more than 88cm. This made me pick up a measuring tape - to find that my waist measures 92cm.
I was shocked.
Then two more things happened last week that made me think about my weight. We had people from MBF come to our work and set up a "free health check" in one of our meeting rooms. So off I went: blood pressure good, resting heart rate (52) excellent, BMI: 26.5. Err, not great. Then he measured my waist and got 92cm ... at which point he informs me the optimal size of my waist is not 88cm, it's in fact 80cm. Sheesh, 12cm feels like a lot to lose.
Later that day I received a catalogue from Ezi-buy in the mail. I flicked through it and came to the size charts. According to this catalogue, my waist measurement means I ought to be wearing size 18.
Hmmmm. Okaaaaay. I am actually wearing size 12 clothes (admittedly some are tight round the waist) and some size 14s.
You would think that all this would be enough to make me take all 65kg of myself back to WW. But not quite - as I said, something in my head will click (and probably soon) and it is then that the process will begin again.
In the meantime I am still processing what happened to me yesterday. I was walking E in the stroller by the river, on our way to meet Shaun off the train. Four old deros were sitting by the river, swigging cheap wine and swearing at each other. (Thankfully it is rare to see deros round our place, but it does happen).
I was walking along, minding my own business and admittedly wearing a skanky old pair of shorts and a stretched-old old grey t-shirt when one of them yells out at me: "You've got a fat arse."
Eh?
Head down, keep walking.
Then he yells it again: "Hey, you've got a fat arse."
Lovely. Really lovely, Comment clearly meant for me, as I am the only other person in the park.
Ignore, ignore. Drunken idiot. I don't have a fat arse! Never have had one!
Anyhow, Shaun was brilliant and told me that of course I don't have a fat arse, that the old fools were clearly blind (drunk?).
It's tricky, all this stuff, isn't it? My rational mind tells me that 65kg is really not that much overweight. But since I am someone who has blood pressure issues, I feel I ought to watch it, for my heart's sake. I also work in an image-conscious industry, and a competitive one at that. Come to mention it, almost everything is competitive these days.
Anyhow, I know what I need to do and, you watch me, I will do it. Just in my own time.

***

Meanwhile, some happy snaps of the lounge-bouncing kidlet. Who definitely doesn't need to lose any weight.











4 comments:

M said...

The weight issue after kids is always tricky. I still have the five or so kilos I didn't get rid of after the second child and my doctor told me, helpfully, that they're probably mine to keep. Great.

Stomper Girl said...

I don't want to drag you down but do it now before you're 40. Because it gets even harder to shift then. Even for me and I eat well and exercise for a living. Of course, I could give up chocolate and it might improve. But for me the whole point of exercise (apart fomr dance-related fun) is so you get to eat chocolate.

Fairlie - www.feetonforeignlands.com said...

People only comment about arses that they notice. And they notice them because they're great. I mean, whoever really notices bad arses?

That dero just couldn't in his drunken state find the right vocabulary to yell out "You have a fabulous, spectacular arse." The word fat just slipped out instead.

Anonymous said...

I have also started to follow a weight loss program through Weight Watchers, hope it will work for me.