Cups and cakes, cups and cakes

[austin_dern]

According to the WiiFit, this morning, I didn't weigh much more than I did last Monday. I didn't weigh a statistically significant amount less, either, a rare break from form, but I regard that as a triumph. You see, last week, I made a pig of myself.

It was the march of a thousand temptations. Monday was the office potluck lunch, everyone bringing in food, and everybody brought in way too much food. I alone brought in two cheesecakes, as deserts, and there's as of today, a week later, more than half of one cheesecake and a quarter of the other left. There were meatballs, ziti, sausage, pierogies, lunch meats, five kinds of cheeses (they were surprised someone was eating so much of the havarti with dill; well, I like havarti, as well as most cheeses). In short, there was a lot of temptation, and I ate. A lot.

But here's the thing: I didn't gain substantial weight. Oh, there were days, Tuesday particularly, that my weight shot up, but I worked it all back off. I stuffed myself, first on Monday, then --- despite my knowing better --- with leftovers Tuesday through Thursday, and then at the pizza party on Friday. And on top of that I missed yoga Wednesday so I could go to Rifftrax, where by the way I had a large popcorn and large Coke Zero. Despite missing that big block of exercise I made up the difference. I can finally say that my weight is really under my control now.

This week, the most food-heavy week I've had, has made clear how this year I took control of my destiny. I could very easily have continued being fat-to-obese, and I changed that. It's ben a lot of hard work, and it's not quite done yet, but ... well, I made it. I mastered a part of my life which I had given up trying to control back in 1985 with awful tuna fish sandwiches made on horrible 'light' 'mayonnaise' and achingly thin bread that tasted like cardboard. In 2009, I mastered my body.

And now I can think what to take over in 2010.

Trivia: Shepherds in Landes, France, would habitually spend whole days walking on ten-foot tall stilts, using an extra pole to form a tripod to rest. These enabled them to walk as much as 75 miles in a day. Source: The Discovery Of France: A Historical Geography, Graham Robb.

Currently Reading: The World Of Mister Dooley, Finely Peter Dunne. Edited by Louis Filler. You know, for 110-year-old humor writings this is surprisingly spry, and a counterexample to the idea that nobody really knew how to be funny before the first steam-powered Robert Benchley was patented in 1922.

Comments

[xolo.livejournal.com]

a counterexample to the idea that nobody really knew how to be funny before the first steam-powered Robert Benchley was patented in 1922

I've always found that Clemens fellow quite droll, if a bit arch and dry for modern tastes. Dickens had his moments as well.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Interesting to mention Clemens --- Dunne's best-regarded work is that of Mister Dooley, done in dialect. It takes a bit to get used to but from it I can hear where a lot of Irish characters of cartoons and radio shows got their accents.

Anyway, he's serving up still-fresh bon mots such as ``A fanatic is a man that does what he thinks th' Lord wud do if He knew th' facts iv th' case'' or ``It is his [ the vice-prisident's ] jooty to rigorously enforce th' rules iv th' Sinit. There ar-re none.'' Or (concluding an anecdote) ```That shows waniv th' evils iv a lack iv idycation,' Mr. Dooley continued. `If Sobieski had known th' language ---' `He'd a halted,' said Mr. Hennessy. `He would not,' said the philosopher. `He'd niver been there at all. While th' watchman was walkin' knee-deep in snow, Sobieski'd ben comfortably joltin' th' watchman's boss in a dark alley down town. Idycation is a gr-reat thing.''' That stuff's still got a punch.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Regrettably, I think that this year was when I came to accept that I don't have a great deal of control over my weight. I, too, have made a pig of myself and not gained substantial weight over the last couple of weeks, and rather than encouraging me it just seems to prove that there's no sensible cause and effect to it and no way to predict whether I'm going to gain weight in a week where I eat sandwiches with light mayo and light bread (and yes, I eat things like that) or lose weight after spending a week eating Christmas cookies. I envy that it works out more rationally for you.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, love ... well, I know I've been one of those outliers, the freak events that gets mentioned as not representative of typical results. It isn't fair that you aren't seeing a rational weight loss, something proportionate to the work I know you're putting in.

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

I welcomed last weekend's snowstorm as a chance to burn some calories off. Most of my exercise is walking, so I try to run up the stairs or take circuitous routes to add a little movement to my days. Shoveling was a nice break from that routine.

I can't say if I actually lost any weight, though: my belt remains where I don't want it to be, by a notch. I don't use the scale anymore (scary numbers ;o)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, shoveling's a good way to burn calories, although the neighborhood association around here has people on the payroll to dig us out of snowstorms so that option's denied me. I can't honestly say I miss it, though. Even brushing the remnants of two feet of snow off my car reminded me I don't like dealing with snow.

If I went by belt notches I'd have thought I was accomplishing nothing in my exercise from January through about May. It's only from then on that my shrinking actually got noticeable. The WiiFitPlus scheme now does allow you to enter belt sizes, sure, now that it's physically impossible for me to have much more variation.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Very good to hear to you have your weight under control. Hurrah. :)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I'm just trying very hard not to go too crazy about wanting about five or six more pounds taken off.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Honestly, you look extremely thin to me already. I hope you don't overdo it.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I don't think that I can overdo it. I mean, not that I mean I think I can do it without limit, but I'm fairly sure that it's physically impossible for me to lose another, say, twenty pounds while staying healthy. Still, a couple more pounds seems possible, based on the bit of fat still left on me when I sit down.