WEIGHT GOES DOWN - SIZE GOES UP

While shopping for a home staging client, I fell prey to one of the dangers of being in Marshall's, Ross and other discount stores - I shopped for myself.  I flipped through the 2 racks of Plus Sized clothes (always the smallest and saddest section of these stores) and came up with 3 tops to try on. 
That day I was wearing one of my old favorite shirts - a pin tucked denim shirt with a v-neck.  It is comfy but it really is too big on me now, I was even wearing a t-shirt under it.  It is a size 2X from Woman Within.   The tops I was going to try on were knits and by eye I could tell I needed to try them in 3X. 

Not one of those shirts fit.  They were too tight, and not just at the hip, where I know I am larger than the average woman.  (I have always had an "hourglass" figure - not busty but I have always had a small waist except now I carry more weight on my stomach and so the hip/stomach area is my hard to fit part.)

I wasn't looking for anything special, no occasion coming up demanding new clothes or anything.  But I must admit to some chagrin that I have lost over 50 pounds and I can't fit into a size LARGER than the one I am wearing!

When I was a young woman, there were no size 0 or 1 clothes.  I wore a beautiful size 12 dress to my Senior Ball.  I still have it.  My mom and sisters have borrowed it over the years because it is such a classic style.  When my daughter needed a dress for an event and we didn't really want to spend money on yet another dress, I suggested she try it on just to see if she liked it enough to wear it.

At that time she was a serious athlete, very strong and fit and she wore size 8 clothes.  She tried on my dress and it was too small.  I was dumbfounded.   It was my first introduction to how much manufacturers have changed the sizes over the years - vanity sizing they call it.

So my question is - if most women's sizes are cut bigger than they used to be...why are plus sizes being cut smaller?  I know there are inconsistencies between designers and fabric types and all that, but has anyone else experienced this?

THE LESSON OF THE DAY

"...constant stress can make losing weight more difficult than it needs to be. Research shows that chronic stress can affect your metabolism, promoting fat storage, and increasing cravings for sugary, high-fat “comfort foods."

This was the message in my Spark People e-mail this morning.  The article was about stress from weight loss expectations, but stress from any source can cause the same issues, as I well know.  The last 7 weeks have wrecked havoc on my psyche and it certainly shows in my weight. 

The article goes on to say "determination for weight loss despite high stress in other areas of your life may indicate that you don’t fully appreciate the difficulties of trying to lose weight, or the importance of modifying your weight loss expectations when other aspects of life become difficult. Sometimes, just holding your own and not gaining (or regaining) weight is a very significant accomplishment!"

That's nice, but when it comes down to it, the stress in my life is not going away anytime soon.  And the fact is, it has been going on for almost 8 years now and has certainly contributed to the significant amount of weight I need to lose in the first place.  So holding steady until it passes isn't really an option I want to accept.

What I see that I need to do is to have more things in place to turn to when the stress ratchets up, as it has in the past couple of months.  Something more helpful than peanut butter cups, that is!

Another article I jumped to said "...eating when stressed is a somewhat learned behavior. Yes, there is brain chemistry involved, but over time, we can rewire our brains to not let stress affect our eating and energy levels."    and  "Then when you're faced with stress, take a few deep breaths, recognize the stress for what it is, and try to deal with the stressor as calmly and effectively as you can. If you have cravings remind yourself that your body's hormones are being tricked and this too shall pass."

This is the area where I have difficulty.  I don't always recognise that I am reacting negatively to increased stress until I have succumbed to cravings.  I need to have more stress reduction activites in place so that I can increase my self awareness and my ability to fight off the negative and destructive ways I try to deal with it.

So I take back my earlier complaint about all the Spark People e-mails - this one was very helpful!

ME, FEELING

Under my surface of calm are the layers of chaos.  Like the duck moving smoothly over the water with feet paddling like crazy underneath.  When all the stress and unresolved feelings build up and I feel threatened by them, then I stuff them down, smooth them over by putting my focus on eating instead.  I am not sure when I started behaving this way, I know that the last 10 years it has become a damaging cycle of behaviour.

I can't believe this is how my life turned out.  We really didn't do anything wrong.  We just didn't, somehow,  do it right.  We are in bad financial situation and I am frustrated and upset and freaking out.

I have written and re-written this post a dozen times in the last week.  I am at turns angry and whiny and at all times feeling sorry for myself - so I have deleted most of it.  It serves no purpose. Life isn't fair.  Bla, bla, bla.

I am pulling myself together and getting back to the gym and healthy eating because not doing so has not helped.  I know that.  When I managed to get myself quiet and face what was going on I could see that right away.  I slipped back to the old response to stress so smoothly that I hardly knew I had done it until I was in deep.  Especially because it all started over the holidays!

My pants feel tight, I am jiggly and can tell by climbing the stairs that I have lost my aerobic gains.  It is all fixable.  Just got to get back to it.  I've done it before.

WHAT'S UP

Stressed out of my mind here.  Holding on by the fingernails.  Trying hard to maintain.  More in a few days...

PLAN FOR ANOTHER DAY

I am a person who plans things out.  Especially when it comes to my time,  I look at the week ahead of me and take in many factors and map it out.  Tom has been met with the "fish eye" on more than one occasion when he mentioned the night before that he wanted to use my car the next day - because, of course, I would have planned my week differently if I had known I would be saddled with the biggest truck in the world on any given day.  I pretty much stay home when I have that vehicle at my disposal...

We have been having lousy weather (for NorCal anyway) for a few months. ( I know, I have turned into a whiner about it.)  So when it was forecast that today was going to be the nicest, warmest, sunniest day of this week - I planned around it.  I have to plant 6 big flower pots for our home staging job on Friday, some other outdoor chores and poor Hilda has not been out for a walk in ages (her bad back does poorly in the cold); then there is that new resolution and pedometer.



A younger, more spry version of Hilda!

 Today dawned as frosty and foggy as the other days this week but I was hopeful that the sun would indeed come out.  Hoping, hoping, piling on layers of clothing, hoping...the sun finally peeked through at about 2:30.  I went out to plant but I kept having to come inside to warm my hands and there was no way I could take little Hilda out when the temperature is 43 degrees rather than the promised 60 degrees.

So it has been a day of frustrations, fits and starts on my to-do list.  I have only managed 5500 steps so I am going to have to get out on my own and hope that there is a warmer day before the rain starts so Hilda can trot along with me.

WALKING IS RESOLUTION ONE

One of the things I plan to do this year is to walk more.  I did the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer many years ago and although I found walking the very long distances pretty boring, the walking itself was really good for me.  I did the 60 plus mile walk in 2 days with no more damage than some blisters and blackened toe nails!

I wish I had the wonderful trail system my sisters have where they live, or a waterfront walk like Cammy enjoys.  A short drive takes me to a few parks to avoid the tedium of suburban neighborhoods - so I shouldn't bemoan what I don't have and enjoy the fact that there is not snow on the ground here!

I pulled out my pedometer today to start counting my steps toward the recommended 10,000 per day - but the battery is dead!

I am walking out the door to buy batteries right now...

NEW YEAR - NEW NUMBERS ON THE SCALE

I think I mentioned on my other blog that there was one of those gift exchanges at work where you could pick a gift or "steal" one from someone else.  The manager bought all the gifts and there was a wide array of things.  I was up second and pulled out a 15 pound box of See's Candy!  I knew I would not be going home with that - but what I did end up going home with was a scale!

Now it may seem odd that I do not already own a scale, but the one I had for years wound up in the garage for weighing eBay packages and then...well, I don't know what happened to it.  I always weigh in at the gym, on the same scale.  I found out that different scales at the gym weigh me differently - so I always stick with the one scale.  I weigh with my shoes on at the end of my work-out.  I have no idea if this is the ideal time to find out my weight - I am more interested in downward movement of the number than the number itself.

So the new home scale is very fancy.  It allegedly does body analysis in addition to weight.  All I know is the first time I stepped on the scale I had suddenly  achieved the weight I was in my 20's!  I thought "well this scale certainly needs an adjustment" and then I saw the little kg on the readout.  Oh.  Metric weight.  I ran downstairs to google the conversion and was happy that it showed I was in the range I expected. 

But now no amount of manual reading and button pushing will change the damn thing over to pounds and I doubt that I am going to learn the metric system at this point of my life!  I may as well put this one in the garage, too.