Day 61 (maybe) of Phase 5: Plateau bit the big one for sure, Waist Gets Closer to Dr. OzLand Boundary, and The One Where I Gush Obnoxiously About Great Love of My Life (again) Especially for Food Freak

Tanita-san is most beneficent today: 213.2

As of right now, I can report a 2 lbs loss to the Challenge Fearless Leader. I don't have to send it until noon Sunday, so I need to stay far away from salt shakers and deli meats until I weigh in officially, cause I don't wanna mess with the BOOOOFUL numeros! (And if anyone is sure of what today's day it is on Phase 5, let me know. I may be off.)

Da plateau has, for now, done died.

Breathing is still slowly improving. I think the rains Tuesday must have cleaned the air some. Been easier on walks,  much less gasping. :)

I knew I had lost more. When I woke up and did my daily morning post-wake-up ritual of inspecting my totally nude bod in a full length mirror, my waist did looked "less than". I got the tape measure, and yes. I got to record a lower waist number. Hallelujah! Closer and closer to the magic 35 inch boundary that Dr. Oz always yaps about. :D

I posted early on when I began this second weight loss blog that I had two main reasons why I wanted to lose weight, get fit, get healthier. I figured I'd link up to that old post after a comment by Food Freak on my previous blog entry:

I really is romantic that he ran to join you in your walk. He's a good man--quite romantic. He must love you a whole lot, which is completely understandable. You seem to be a loving woman. That's important. And you're passionate, too. Ah, a good couple. How long have you guys been married? How long were you together before getting married? This is very personal so tell me to shut up, okay?

My family would guffaw at the idea that I wouldn't want to yammer on and on at length about the merits and wonderfulness of my husband and how crazy-mad in love I still am with him after 29 years. He is...the best. People have actually told me I get all glowy when I talk about him. Well, I guess that's understandable. He's this pure, beautiful, unspoiled, devoted, patient, funny, smart, adorable, sexy, tender, gentle, sweet, talented, creative, fully loyal and unselfish glowing star in my life's firmament.

I am so nuts about him it's probably off the charts lunacy.

And yes, we're a romantic couple. My family has more than once told us to cut it off with the googly eyes and smooching. PDA's have been toned down, but they persist. :)

We met June 1982. Twenty-four days later, we exchanged "I love yous". Married June 1983. And I still feel like I'm a giddy young bride when I'm with him. I'm still his Princess. He's still my Prince. And even after all these years, it's really tough not to jump his bones every time I see him. His smile makes my day, my week, my life.

He has loved me slim and he has loved me morbidly obese, and he has not once thrown my fat in my face (like I've seen some hubbies do, shamefully), or insist I get on a diet. He simply has been sturdily, steadfastly supportive of my goals and wishes, no matter what they've been. He walks with me now and eats more veggies now (and he's not a veggie lover), because it is better for me and for us.

It's the most stress-free relationship of my life. Waiters occasionally ask us if we're newlyweds. :) We rarely quarrel, and when we do, it's over very fast, because it's too distressing for both of us to be at odds, so we end up both apologizing within 15 minutes and smooching up. When I got ill and had to quit working in 1990, he was my nurse and patient lover through the depressions and trials and multiple medical trips, etc. When my parents were dying, he was my rock and a calming presence even for my parents. One of the reasons my mom could die in peace was that she knew her kids--including me--were in very good spousal hands. She loved my husband like her own son and one of my most poignant memories is her feebly, blindly, trying to raise her arms to hug him on the last night of her life.

So, yeah. I want a long and healthy life with him...and a long and happy eternity, too, if God allows. :D I wanna be by his side even in the Kingdom. I'm that greedy.

I am grateful to him for not holding it against me that I let my body get so bad, let myself fall into binge eating. To him, I've always been beautiful, and even my deflating body with the weird crinkly skin and pannus, to him, it's desirable. Every day, his eyes look at me like I'm the #1 wonder of the world. I suspect I have the same look in my eyes when I see him. Well, do I?

Charles loves Mir; Mir loves Charles

Yes, I do like looking at THAT face! See!?

How do I find enough hours in the day to thank God for this gift:

I can't. I'll just have to borrow time from Eternity to do so...

Um, does this answer your questions, Food Freak? :D

QUOTE OF THE DAY: This "not Biggest Loser" Big Loser is RIGHT, so Listen Up!

"America, if there is one message that I want to send, it is that you do not need to be on The Biggest Loser to lose weight. All you have to do is believe in yourself, trust the process and take this journey one day at a time. Don't sit on the couch and watch the show anymore and watch us change our lives. Get up and do something for you. You can do it too."

--Courtney Crozier, eliminated TBL Contestant

hat tip to A Daily Dose of Dieting

Day 60 of Phase 5: Yay, the scale mooooooooooooooved... 85 lbs down now, and Walking with hubby is da best!

I actually risked the scale yesterday: 214.2
Then today: 214.0

So, it wasn't a fluke. It is progress again. So, I am hoping that by Sunday, I can get close enough to 213 to report a 2 lb loss. (I had no loss to report last Sunday.)

I think there were multiple culprits (the medical stuff going on as I mentioned in a previous post). But there may have been another estrogen release thing. Every now and then, after the loss of some weight, I get spotting. I get like a mini-period, though I'm menopausal. It's the hormones that release with the fat, I suspect (google it). So, that could have been the plateau co-conspirator with the inflammation.

I just want the progress to continue. I hate stalls, no matter how brief. Annoying. I don't care if it's a pound a week. I want the loss when I do the fricken hard work!

If I were cheating, eating up a storm, ignoring exercise, fine. I don't deserve to lose an ounce.

But when I'm eating at caloric goal and exercising and hydrating and  resting as needed, it vexes me. It's my sense of fairness and justice in play. If I overeat, I deserve to see added pounds on the scale. If I don't, I deserve to see loss.

The body doesn't work on my own system of justice. Snarf.

But fine, it's moving again. I rejoice.

Yesterday was Pilates--we did some new challenging stuff--and walking. The temperature was very pleasant in the early evening. Hubby met me halway through my walk (he got home from work, saw I was out on my exercise time, and went to catch up and walk home with me). I found that romantic. We held hands during the cool-down phase as we got close to home. Nice. Hee.

I can actually tell that the pound came from my belly fat. Hips measurement was smaller and I looked a bit more deflated in the hanging sack of my pannus. (Gross. But, hey..it is what it is.)

Seeing that lovely new number --it's now 85 lbs down--makes me want to stay on plan EVEN MORE. I feel the surge of motivation. Yes!

Anyway, not much more to add today. Do your best. Be happy and well....

Day 58 of Phase 5: Inclement Weather, Poetry Month, Poetic Ultimate Fantasy Yo-Yo Diet, And A Spur o' Da Moment Diet Haiku...Cause Along with Finding My Inner Non-Fatty, I Need to Reconnect With My Inner Christina Rossetti....

It's been ugly up in da sky. Walking may have to be nixed. Well, outdoor walking (which I really like now). Indoor walking is always possible with Ms. Sansone. So, that may be my default today.

I so love the rustle of palm fronds. That's the best thing this lousy weather has offered today. Well, and the lawn and flowers like moisture. :)

April showers...yep. That's today.

April is also National Poetry Month. And reading poetry on rainy days is...well...perfect, yes?

I find it sad that poetry is not appreciated as it should be. I have had amazing transcendent moments reading poetry. There are certain things that can put me in that transcendent state--prayer, music, intense bursts of love-feelings, and beautiful passages of literature. Poetry, by virtue of its specific qualities and emphases (rhythm, alliteration, assonance, arrangement, rhyme, half-rhyme, even SHAPE) is the type of literature most prone to do whatever it is that happens int he human brain that takes you to that glimmering, timeless transcendent experience.

I don't know why it happens, what connections within the brain tissue, what neural firings, what levels of memories and feelings, but some poems bring me as close to orgasm as it gets without being physically touched.

And even when I don't reach transcendence, I can get an immense pleasure just from things beautifully stated and gorgeously arranged.

So, yeah, I like poetry. :)

I used to write it often and, if I do say so myself, and as some others (published and award-winning poets) have said, not too shabbily. But I stopped writing poetry several years ago. And I stopped writing my fiction 3 years ago. And I don't like that this happened. But it did. Something in me shut down, dried up, and got fearful. I was on the verge of leveling up in my writing, becoming even better and getting noticed (by editors and other writers) and it freaked my neurotic self.

So, part of getting healthy is not just my body. But my body and my creative spirit. I want to be full of powerful images and beautiful phrases again.

I hope you take time to read poetry this month. I don't care if you go for light-hearted, emotional lyric, long-winded epic, evocatively brief haiku. Just read some and see if you find a special well of feeling and thought and, hey, maybe even transcendence.

Since this is a weight loss blog, and I last was writing speculative poetry (science fiction, fantasy, horror), I offer this fantasy/mythic poem with a touch of humor and a dark truth about dieting, to boot: The Phoenix Diet.

You may read one of my SF poems here.

You may read one of my fave classic poets here: Christina Rossetti
Three of my fave modern (but deceased) poets here: Elizabeth Bishop
and Denise Levertov  and Edith Sodergran.

Poets alive today I value: Carolyn Forche, Catherine Sasanov, Samantha Henderson, Bruce Boston, Mike Allen, Joe Haldeman. (Google em; all the poets after Sasanov are known for SF Poetry.)

I remember years and years ago, when I happened upon a poem by Sodergran--of whom I had NEVER heard of in all my years of reading poetry and being a top English student--and I was ravished. But I could not find her books. I had to resort to frequent web searches and eventually got two. They are easier to get these days, but man, how frustrating when you find a voice that suits you and it is hidden away.

You might also google up Yevgeny Yevtushenko (the first book of poetry I ever bought for myself, not an anthology, but a poet's collection, was his, when I was 16 on a trip to NYC), Pablo Neruda, Rainer Maria Rilke,  and Anna Akhmatova.  So many. Well...the interwebs is a treasure trove. Explore.

Any fave poets you'd like to recommend?

So, timer is set, and I'm giving myself 2 minutes to come up with a quickie dieter haiku. Maybe you wanna try it, too? Why not? I am primarily intersted in spiritual and speculative genres (faith meets fiction, especially fantasy and sci-fi), so I will assume I'll head that way. Here goes:

Spacebound in springtime:
Within the ship, I'm weightless.
At last, diet-free...

Eh. Could be better. But not bad for impromptu. My first line, before I erased it, was "heading for heaven", cause I wanted to make the spiritual connection of dropping one's weights (burdens, sins, etc) on the way UPward. But, wanted to stick with the SF and add the seasonal element (though it's weird to have it in space). I like the sibilance and the rhythm. And the "wheeeee" happy sound of "freeeeee". :D I can picture a woman spinning in zero-G with joy and NOT WEIGHING ANYTHING! hahahaha

Go on, give it a shot.

And let me know if you find a poem to absolutely, totally love this National Poetry Month.

Eat well, move well, READ well..and be well...