I don't know if it was original to the 1960's and '70s, or if it predates that, but the saying 'This is the first day of the rest of your life' makes me want to commit an act of violence. It's so... Argh!
However, it is because this is the day I start remaking myself. Not in the superficial hair dye and highlights manner, or the polish and puff manner, I'm just not like that. Instead, it's in the rebuilding and realignment manner.
When I was a kid, I was skinny. Rail thin with ribs from here to there, then I hit puberty and wham the fat found me. When I was fourteen I was wearing size fourteen clothing, and it wasn't age-adjusted. It was what fit. My friends were all wearing, or all seemed to be wearing, size six or seven or something that wouldn't fit one of my thighs.
In my late teens I finally got it under control. I went from 160 pounds to 135 pounds. I felt good, I looked good and I could finally shop for 'cute' clothes in size 10/11.
Then I got married and, as marriage often does, it brought weight. It's like a wedding gift from the Fates or something.
Now, thirty-five years on and I've decided to struggle with my weight, again.
Several years ago I weighed 217 pounds. That was my all time high. Even when I was pregnant the most I ever weighed in at was 204 pounds. Then, I lost the baby-fat, got down to 160 again and then ballooned. Packing on fifty-seven pounds because I ate when I was bored. When I was tired. When I was angry or depressed or just because it was there.
Try and lift that, it's shocking to think that's what I was hauling around everywhere I went.
Over a period of a couple of years, between 2010 and 2012, I took off thirty-seven of those pounds. I got down to a relatively trim 180 and I was proud of myself. But I was also depressed. I mean, after all, there are football players - professional, adult football players - who weigh less than I do! It's depressing and it's irritating.
Last night I finally worked up the courage to weigh myself for the first time in months.
Damn. I knew I had gained weight because I haven't been 'careful'. But I didn't think it was that much.
After all, I still fit into most of the 'skinny' clothes - those garments that are numbers that don't include an 'X' in the size - that I bought after my last weight-loss round.
It was that much, so now I'm determined. I want to get rid of this... stuff because I want to be active for a lot longer than I will be if I'm packing a giant sack of kitty litter with me everywhere I go.
Forty pounds, that's my goal. Eighteen months, that's my timeline. So, let's see here.
40 pounds x 3500 calories = 140,000 calories.
30 days x 18 months = 540 days.
140,000/540 = 259.26 calories per day.
2,000 calories is the standard for a normal adult human being's daily caloric needs.
1,700 calories should be my daily goal.
That's do-able. 1,700 calories per day, or less, if I can manage it. And I should be able to, because I have before.
It was boring. It was dull. It was a gigantic pain in the butt, but for months I tracked and estimated the cost of everything that went between my lips. I got pretty good at it, too. It will be a nuisance again, but it won't be hard. And even though I'm starting from a place higher than my recent low, it's still substantially less than where I began last time.
So, despite the fact that I want to strangle the person who started that sing-song happy crap of 'This is the first day of the rest of your life', it is. It will be, and I'm going to keep track and do my best to do my best to get down to something like a reasonable weight. Forty pounds. It sounds like a lot, and it is, but I can do it.
Now, I'm off to get breakfast - packaged oatmeal = 160 calories. 1 tbsp of flax seed = 30 calories. 1 banana, medium = 105 calories. Breakfast = 295 calories. Balance remaining = 1,405.
Have a lovely day!
Best~
Philippa
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