Patience is a Virtue, and Other Crap…

I am not particularly patient.  I can seem patient, but in my head I’m counting the minutes, days, or weeks ’til I get what I want.  When I can count, I’m at least content.  When it’s something unquantifiable, like “when am I going to get a promotion” or “when is my weight FINALLY going to start falling off again”, I go nuts.  If someone would tell me I could do what I’m doing, lose an ounce a month, and be at my goal weight in 12 years, I might ALMOST be able to handle it better than the uncertainty.

I’m not sure what exactly caused the plateau.  Things were going along swimmingly all summer, then September hit and it was like the weight gain trifecta: extreme stress at work, my parents living with us for an indefinite amount of time, and everyone’s birthdays who weren’t in March were in September.  Plus a gaming convention in town with wicked afterparties.  So basically, apply a ton of unusual stress, and then give TONS of outlets to overeat and drink.  I think under the circumstances I did ok, but my mistake was to try that month, under extreme duress, time crunch, and lack of sleep, to STEP UP my workouts.  I’m tackling harder workouts now without a problem, but that was NOT THE MONTH to do it.

At the very least, feeling like such an extreme failure all month made me realize that I wasn’t doing my body and mind any good by treating it that way, so October saw me cut my cardio time, increase my weights and eating overall.  I just couldn’t keep feeling exhausted and cold all the time!  Well, it certainly FELT better, and while the first two weeks saw a bit of weight loss, it slowed and stalled out.  November, for my sanity, I decided to completely go off the grid.  That felt even better, and by the end of the month I finally felt like I had some gas in the tank and wasn’t running on fumes.  My lowest recorded weight over these 2 months was 164.8.  Considering I hit 170 in mid-August and hit 165 in mid-October, so the last month and a half, I’ve seen literally 2 ounces of loss.

However, there’s been other progress.  The weight training is really changing my shape.  In a space of 5 lbs, I’ve gone from squeezing into 12s barely to being comfortable in 10s.  My stomach is MUCH flatter, my arms are more defined, and I’m much more comfortable with my hair up.  Coats are fitting differently.  Also, I’m so so so close to an unassisted pull up, I’ve increased most of my weights, and I’m now comfortably running 5 miles in just over 50 minutes.  These things are all great, but sadly, the scale is still the ultimate measure.  I’m still too big overall for my likings.  I don’t want to stay at 165 lbs forever.  I don’t want to be petite, waifish, or modelesque, but I’d like to get a bit further away from hulking, stocky, and linbackeresque.

I’ve been tracking and cutting calories this month (just a bit – I seem to naturally stay between 1500-1700 on good days unless I’m splurging, trying to cut back to 1300-1400) and trying to be patient.  Today, I stepped on the scale for the first time in 5 days.  I was even questioning doing it because I felt bloated, but I’m glad I did, because I saw a new low – 163.6.  I have never been so dang happy over 1.2 lbs, but I’m practically giddy today.  It’s not so much the number, but that there is actual progress again.  What I’m doing is working again.  And I can totally do this!

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