Fat Woman With A Band

I’ve been pondering what to do next, that is what to do when I’ve reached my goal weight with this exercise regimen. I need to think about what kind of exercise I’ll do to help keep my weight in check, and not be “soul-sucking” using Jackie’s words.

I’ve been pondering doing a half-marathon walk. I know I can do the walk, but whether I can do it in a quasi-competitive way is another thing. Also, I wonder how you train for that, and then which marathon would I do? I think I’ll percolate on this for a bit. One of my first thoughts about this is that I’d need to train by walking – no duh! – but winter is just about to begin for us and I seriously dislilke winter weather and walking on the icy, snowy, slushy, yucky streets. Treadmill? That kinda invokes the soul-sucking analogy for me.

Anyway, as I say, I’ll percolate on this for a bit.

The weight loss is trickling along, just about what’s to be expected. I have about 29 pounds to go ’til goal. I really hope that it won’t take 29 weeks to do that, but it’s feeling like it might. Now THAT feels soul-sucking.

Carrying on.

When I think about comfort food I often think first of food my mother cooked on Sunday mornings for Sunday lunch. My parents were Hungarian so the food we had at home was Hungarian.

So when I visit my relatives in Budapest I look forward to a lot of home cooking. And they never disappoint. My aunt, a cousin, and a cousin’s daughter-in-law are all great cooks. I don’t crave fancy meals, just everyday cooking. My cousin likes to prepare more elaborate meals, but there’s always an “everyday” course even there.

I’m quite satisfied that I had pretty much all the food that I wanted with two small exceptions. I had fried chicken, chicken soup, dumplings, and fish meals. All y-u-m-m-y. I had a couple pieces of pastry, and some Hungarian crepes.  I didn’t get to langos, which is a fried bread dough that can be enjoyed savory or sweet. And I didn’t have any strudel.

My relatives were very helpful in that they asked me what I could eat – to which I answered EVERYTHING. I was also very conscious that I was being observed for signs of, well I don’t know why exactly but I think they weren’t sure in the first few days that I wouldn’t start gagging at every meal. When they realized the lapband wasn’t a thing to worry about, they all relaxed.

I didn’t do as much exercise as I wanted to, but I did the best I could. I had two good walking days, and one so-so walking day. Jackie gave me an exercise routine to do in my hotel room which I did every second day. And my room was on the seventh floor so I took the stairs up and down at least once a day, and sometimes twice.

I had only one day that was uncharacteristically hungry and that was the day coming home. I ate every single bit of airline food available, and happily it was relatively plentiful. Breakfast, lunch, one small salty snack, and one heated veggie snack.

If I have one complaint it’s this – I had a lot of problems staying regular, and I’m still in that place. I don’t know what exactly is going wrong, and I’m going to concentrate on fibre, veggies and fruit this week to see if I can get back to normal.

So, in the end I lost weight. Not a lot, but enough to have reached my second last milestone – I am now overweight. My BMI says I am no longer obese.

I have 30 pounds to go to goal. It still feels a long, long way away.

That might be a slight misnomer. I think of vacation as getting away from work, and as I actually don’t work much (o.k., hardly at all), I don’t think I should call it a vacation.

Anyway, I’m leaving my home, and going on an airplane to another country to visit my relatives for ten days.

I’m an inveterate over-packer. I believe that started because clothes in my size were hard to find, and I wanted to make sure that I had enough with me. Kinda of crazy thinking. I think that kind of thinking also explains why I have so many pairs of socks – more than 200. Here’s my sock-thinking: socks are pretty much one size and I could get them anywhere, anytime. I kinda also like the feel of brand new socks – my nod to fetishism.

My clothes arsenal is also much diminished. I still have a few items that are about three sizes too big for me as I haven’t been able to give them up yet. On the whole, though, I have fewer items to choose from because I’m down-sizing. I’ll probably be taking about half my wardrobe with me. But now if something happens, e.g, my suitcase gets lost, or accidentally spill paint over my entire wardrobe I’ll be able to get replacement garb easily enough.

I’m down another two pounds or so this week, and closing in on my next goal which is to be overweight, not obese, according to the BMI scales.