Niobe
05-15-2006, 05:12 PM
(Okay, so I'm not a pirate. I got your attention though, right? Right? :lol: )
Well, here I am, finally posting. Used to lurk around the old BBS, was surprised to find it gone! Still adjusting to this one, lots of forums. :)
I'm not new to PP, although I've been pretty much ignoring it for about four years now after spectacularly falling off-plan and re-gaining my lost weight plus sixty pounds. Bad fat kid, no low-carb cookie. :D This is made even more pathetic by the fact that I was a dietetics major before I took time off from school last year--not that they taught much that was useful there, it was all "fat is the devil" blah blah blah. I actually had a professor laugh at me and accuse me of reading "that Atkins crap" when I asked why, exactly, a diabetic should eat carbs when fat and protein won't stimulate insulin like carbs.
Anyhoo, I've been doing the slow, long contemplation of where exactly I am and what I'm doing. Some of this was triggered by my mother going from a size 20 to a size 4 in about 18 months--of course, that was stress and poverty-induced, but it demonstrated to me that we do not, in fact, have big bones. Some of it is the fact that between last May and last September I lost 25 pounds without actually doing anything, and was bummed when that stopped. So at the beginning of March I joined a gym (24 Hour Fitness, I'm a night owl), and I've been swimming laps since then. Sometimes I feel silly paying $40 a month to swim .... but it's worth it just to have the time to myself. And where else am I going to swim at 2 a.m.?
I haven't lost any scale weight since I started the swimming (of course I haven't been eating properly), but some sort of body composition changes are going on. People keep asking me if I've lost weight (my grandmother informed me the other day that "it looks like you finally have a waist!" :rolleyes:), and I'm noticing little changes myself. My cheeks have a bit of a hollow (of course my double chin is unaffected), my bras aren't fitting as tightly, I'm starting to develop little hollows in front of my hips, pants that didn't fit in March do now .... but the weirdest one is that I don't float in the pool like I used to! I used to be able to float vertically and keep my head out of the water with no effort; I could lay on my back in any position and not sink and have my belly and thighs above water. Now only a bit of my belly sticks out ... and when I exhale I sink. :lol:
For about a week now I've been trying to slow eliminate carbs in preparation to go cold turkey. The other day I was doing fabulous until dinner, when an Oreo milkshake sounded just perfect. That's one of the challenges of working in a restaurant -- constantly handling the food I know I shouldn't eat! I don't get any relief at home either, seeing as my primary job is as a live-in nanny, and my family eats an unbelievable amount of carbs. Some of it doesn't tempt me (Wal-Mart brand mac and cheese ... aw man, no vomit smiley? :o ), but other things (strawberry creme cake) are harder to ignore. So I've definitely going to have some challenges in the next year until I have my own place again, but I'm ready to give it a go. :o
Anyway, I've probably typed your ear off too much already, so I'll rein myself in now. Nice to meet ya'll. :p
Well, here I am, finally posting. Used to lurk around the old BBS, was surprised to find it gone! Still adjusting to this one, lots of forums. :)
I'm not new to PP, although I've been pretty much ignoring it for about four years now after spectacularly falling off-plan and re-gaining my lost weight plus sixty pounds. Bad fat kid, no low-carb cookie. :D This is made even more pathetic by the fact that I was a dietetics major before I took time off from school last year--not that they taught much that was useful there, it was all "fat is the devil" blah blah blah. I actually had a professor laugh at me and accuse me of reading "that Atkins crap" when I asked why, exactly, a diabetic should eat carbs when fat and protein won't stimulate insulin like carbs.
Anyhoo, I've been doing the slow, long contemplation of where exactly I am and what I'm doing. Some of this was triggered by my mother going from a size 20 to a size 4 in about 18 months--of course, that was stress and poverty-induced, but it demonstrated to me that we do not, in fact, have big bones. Some of it is the fact that between last May and last September I lost 25 pounds without actually doing anything, and was bummed when that stopped. So at the beginning of March I joined a gym (24 Hour Fitness, I'm a night owl), and I've been swimming laps since then. Sometimes I feel silly paying $40 a month to swim .... but it's worth it just to have the time to myself. And where else am I going to swim at 2 a.m.?
I haven't lost any scale weight since I started the swimming (of course I haven't been eating properly), but some sort of body composition changes are going on. People keep asking me if I've lost weight (my grandmother informed me the other day that "it looks like you finally have a waist!" :rolleyes:), and I'm noticing little changes myself. My cheeks have a bit of a hollow (of course my double chin is unaffected), my bras aren't fitting as tightly, I'm starting to develop little hollows in front of my hips, pants that didn't fit in March do now .... but the weirdest one is that I don't float in the pool like I used to! I used to be able to float vertically and keep my head out of the water with no effort; I could lay on my back in any position and not sink and have my belly and thighs above water. Now only a bit of my belly sticks out ... and when I exhale I sink. :lol:
For about a week now I've been trying to slow eliminate carbs in preparation to go cold turkey. The other day I was doing fabulous until dinner, when an Oreo milkshake sounded just perfect. That's one of the challenges of working in a restaurant -- constantly handling the food I know I shouldn't eat! I don't get any relief at home either, seeing as my primary job is as a live-in nanny, and my family eats an unbelievable amount of carbs. Some of it doesn't tempt me (Wal-Mart brand mac and cheese ... aw man, no vomit smiley? :o ), but other things (strawberry creme cake) are harder to ignore. So I've definitely going to have some challenges in the next year until I have my own place again, but I'm ready to give it a go. :o
Anyway, I've probably typed your ear off too much already, so I'll rein myself in now. Nice to meet ya'll. :p