Melodious Inkwell: Pilates

I've been wondering what to do about my once-under-control, now-wildly-not weight. I was losing weight and gaining strength for a while after I started walking to work, but then the exercise plateaued out and my junk food intake increased and I'm right back where I started. Perhaps past. Not that I'm doing this to be skinny (I'll never be) and sexy (I already am), but seriously. 175lbs at 5'3" is too fucking much. If nothing else, it's bad on my knee.

So I entered into the private "3WAsses" forum at 3WA, just to see what I could see.

What goes on in there is private, but as these are my own words and are not in response to anyone else's, I think I can give myself permission to reprint them. This was my introduction post:

Hi, my name is Gayle, and I'm a (junk)foodaholic.
I wish I was kidding.

I have to kick the habit, cold, every few weeks. It feels like it's just as hard as drugs (not that I'd know). And if I once lean over the side of the wagon, to maybe just take a peek at something, just a little nibble... I fall right off, roll through the dust, and land in the gutter. Surrounded by Doritos and chocolate and french fries.

This week I realized I'm almost back at my highest weight ever, again. At 5'3", 175lbs (size 14/15) is too much for me, no matter that I'm curvy and gorgeous and fun and feel sexy. It's just beginning to be too much; especially again. What most bothers me is my back fat; I hate the feel of rolls on my back. I don’t mind the padding, but that just feels.. icky.

My body image has always been more positive than most. In fact, it may have been too positive. Anorexics look in the mirror and see someone fat; I look in and mirror and see myself thin. It’s great with confidence, but sometimes I realize I’m not exactly little, and sometimes that bothers me. I know I’ll never be 130 again, and probably not even 140; but I think 150, size 11/12 or so is a reasonable goal for me.

I’ve quit eating junkfood several times over the past few years, but it always comes back. In November, I began eating more healthy foods (ie: fruits & vegetables) and less-to-none unhealthy foods (ie: burgers, doritos, packaged foods). Not for weight, but for health; I was literally eating myself sick, not getting the nutrients I needed. I also began walking to work, in October - a total of about 30 mins a day. And suddenly I could sleep, wasn't as sore all the time, didn't get sick as often, and generally felt better.

And as an added bonus, some weight started to come off. I was down to about 160, maybe 165, at the beginning of the year.

Every few weeks I fail in eating my 5-7 veggiefruits a day, and I eat a chip which turns into a bagful, and when I realize I'm not sleeping again and it's because of my crappy food schedule, I have to start right back at the beginning again.

Yesterday I tried on pants and they bulged. I found a scale at my boyfriend's house, (I don't own one, and looking at the numbers is unnatural to me), and discovered that I'm 175 again. Argh!

So that's when I decided I needed help. I'm hoping this is where I can find it.

From there, I decided that I needed to do two things: control the portions of what I eat as well as what’s in them; and get more exercise. I didn’t know what to do for exercise; it needed to be low- to no-impact because of my knee and other injuries, and it needed to be simple and in my living room, because otherwise I just wouldn’t do it. Things suggested were Yoga, Pilates, and swimming. I do laps in Phil’s pool when I can, but that’s only once or twice a week.

After some discussion, I picked up Pilates for Dummies, for $15 at the evil *al-mart last night. Phil just left to play a round of golf so I put it on.

It just kicked my ass! The third exercise (roll-ups) was impossible. I laid on the floor giggling and muttering, "You've got to be kiddin!" while attemping to roll from a lying-down position to a sitting-up-and-reaching-for-toes position. I did that as far as I could (less than a situp, for jebus' sake), and went to about exercise 9, following along (they said do 4 or 5 at first, but I got carried away), and then I watched the rest. There are 18 exercises, plus an intermediate workout which I haven't looked at yet.

This is hard. This is good. I think I'll need to be accountable to y'all in order to keep doing it, though.

Oh, and I just took "before" photos, which no one will ever see unless there are "after" photos. I hope there are after photos.