The magical growing shirts from last August

Last August, I went thrift store shopping and bought a bunch of shirts.  Like, a metric boatload.  It’s REALLY fun to do that when they all cost, like, 3 bucks.  I was super excited to be able to refresh my closet.  Some of the shirts went beyond the typical ironic or triathlon related t-shirts I typically wear, and made me look a little more (just a little bit) like a grown up.  Not that I need that on a daily basis, but it’s kind of nice to be able to wake up and decide if I want to look 12 or more than 12.

One of said new-not-new shirts.

Sadly, due to the great nutrition experiment failure of 2015, most of those shirts had shrank so much that I couldn’t comfortably wear them by mid-September.  It was pretty crazy depressing to have gained that much in a month.  So, for almost a whole year, I have been staring at a bunch of shirts that didn’t quite fit that I’ve never worn.

Zliten, who has also lost a bunch of weight, decided to start wearing his size Large shirts after I continued to tease him about how his XL shirts were looking like tents.  Or mumus.  Or mumu printed tents.  Now, he is at the point where he’s just a few lbs away from his goal.  I am… somewhere in the middle of this process.  I’ve got a long way to go to get to the same point.  However, I figured I owed it to myself to try the same.

Oddly enough, those shirts have sat there long enough that they have grown again to their previous size.  Who knew that 5 months of working on weight loss would have that effect?

I still am cranky that it has taken me 5 months to undo this.  I still am cranky that the numbers say I should be losing about 8 lbs a month and I’m losing 2-3.  However, seeing the pictures I don’t hate, seeing myself in the mirror with a smile and not a grimace, seeing the progress even if it’s slow?  It’s worth it.

Feeling a lot different than this girl from March even if it’s only ~15 lbs or so difference.

I’ve accepted a lot of things in this process.

For some reason, I’m always going to need to stick to the -1000 calories to make any sort of progress.  My body just seems to process calories differently than the fitbit thinks, the nutritionist thinks, that logic dictates.  I’ve read some studies about losing a bunch of weight, and how your body actually burns less calories overall.  While my nutritionist told me that was bull honkey, I think that math seems to back it up in my case.

I’ve accepted that I will probably be at this for a long time, and I should just stay the course because it takes so long to get rolling once I stop.  While I’d love to have been able to diet for 4 months of offseason and have gotten to race weight, it’s just not how it goes for me.  I have to track my food.  I have to maintain a deficit that is small enough to still train but large enough to make a difference.  I have to be patient, persistent, and relentless.

I’m going to probably not be able to come up to 100% form this year.  Last year, I felt a big change between maintaining a deficit and eating enough, or more calories than I needed.  I don’t feel very different right now, but that’s because I’ve been doing this for months.  I *know* that once I’m done with the weight loss, and I bring my calories up, my performance will increase a bit automatically.  I have to be kind to myself when I fail to hit run paces I think should be easy, because they will come easier when it’s time.

I need to remember that the time to skimp on food is NOT before, during, or after a workout.  Yeah, it’s more fun to eat pizza than it is to eat cyborg boob milk gels, but unless I can either eat the pizza as pre- or mid-ride fuel, or consume that pizza within an hour of my workouts, it’s not doing me much good.  My workout sucks, and instead of being able to use that fuel to power a workout, it powers it’s way to my adipose.

This would have gone straight to the thighs… except it was at hour 2 of a 5 hour bike ride.  So it actually went straight to the quads (in a good way).

I also need to realize that I’m in the danger zone right about now.  This is what always happens.  I make some progress, I’m feeling good about myself.  I want to lose more weight, but I no longer hate the mirror, some of my clothes fit… and I loosen up on tracking.  I can see it starting already.  I haven’t tracked since yesterday afternoon.  I’ve totally been busy, but obviously not so busy as I’m writing this blog.  This is the way that progress ends.  Not with a bang, but a whimper.

On that note, off to track, off to be persistent, patient, and relentless, and maybe I’ll be able to find that the next size down shirts have also magically grown again.