MOLLY'S RANTS

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

I biked 9.5 miles this afternoon! (And it's toasty out there!)

[Jaguar]

I'm eating smaller portions in the foods that I like.

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

I've decided that dieting can be traumatic!

A few days ago, I decided that I needed to tackle the behemoth project of going through my dresser drawers, trying things on, sorting and sifting, and downsizing + decluttering those apparel items that (a) no longer fit and (b) I have no intention of ever wearing. Many items actually had to be tried on ... and let me assure you that there's no workout quite like the workout that comes from trying on and taking off a dozen or more sports bras! At one point, I wrenched my shoulder and got a cramp and was actually TRAPPED in my sports bra! LOL! (Don't worry ~ I MacGyver'd myself free using some quick thinking and a nail clipper!) Up to now, I thought the singularly most depressing thing about my even owning sports bras was the fact that they fit best on flat-chested me BACKWARDS. Nope, now I have suffered the ignominy of being bested by some stretchy polyester spandex.  "If you're flat-chested, why do you even OWN a sports bra?" some of you may be thinking. Because they are comfortable (allegedly), don't have cups I can't fill and don't have underwires squooshing my lungs like some medieval corset, THAT'S why! (grin)

Once I made it through my trek to Bra Land ... I tackled the drawer crammed full of swimsuits. OK, by "tackled" I really mean "opened and closed the drawer and decided to deal with swimsuits in April when I can actually go back into the swimming pool." Because, after all, I'm willing to skinny dip in our hot tub ~ once we get it going for winter.  Don't worry, we have a secluded and well-foliaged backyard, and it's a short trip from the door to the hot tub. (This DOES remind me of the winter afternoon a few years ago when I was happily nekkid in my hot tub and my wonderful DH noticed a ferret merrily scampering around our yard. We don't HAVE a pet ferret. So he took it upon himself to yell at the top of his lungs, "HEY! Did anyone lose a ferret?"  EEEEEK! I prefer to be quietly and clandestinely skinny dipping in my hot tub which, as a general rule, doesn't involve someone yelling things to attract the attention of every neighbor in a 50-yard radius who might then LOOK OVER THE DAMN FENCE!) Anyway, I'm digressing.

I then went through all of my underwear, marveling at the lovely colors and patterns that women's plus size underwear is available in. (Maybe it's because I refuse to buy solid color white, beige or light pink underwear? What can I say? I'm an underwear rebel!) Unfortunately, some of my favorites are too big and I bid a fond farewell to the green tie-dyed undies, the ever-festive "lobster and lemons" design, the ones with typewriters all over, and the ones with horizontal orange and purple stripes. (Because, after all, every chubby woman I know wants horizontal orange and purple stripes all over her butt, right?)  I just went online this week and ordered 10 new pair of festively-colored undies ... and I needed to make room. (Why did I buy 10 pair? Because it was one of those buy-5-pair and get a deal sort of things, and there were 8 colors that I actually liked, so that means that I got TWO pair of hot pink and TWO pair of red-and-white stripes to make it 10 pair. Yep, Candy Cane butt here I come!)  Why do they call it a "pair" of underwear, anyway? It's not like socks where you actually get two socks....

The last drawers I tackled contained scarves and hats in one drawer, and one drawer that contains socks and mittens. I apparently have a "thing" for buying warm winter scarves and hats ... and then rarely wearing them since I'm chubby and menopausal and self-generate enough heat to light a nuclear reactor. The NICE thing about my warm scarves and hats is that they all STILL FIT. So there. (grin) Note to self: stop buying purple winter accessories, you have enough. For several people. Who knows? Maybe I will be colder this winter since I've lost a nice chunk of weight. (Not in my head of course, but maybe?) The mittens were trying to escape out of the overly full scarf and hat drawer, so I decided to break them out and stash them in with the socks. After all, they both go on appendages, right?

My other trauma from yesterday is sad. So don't laugh, or I will bite you. While biking yesterday (15.6 miles in total, thank you very much) one of those crazy suicidal fluffy-tailed tree squirrels ran right in front of me and ... didn't survive the encounter. Yes, I got off my bike and checked on him (I did once take an injured squirrel to the emergency vet and $400 later he was fine) ... but he was a goner. I wasn't ready for scooping him up and transporting him home for a decent burial in my bike basket, so when my wonderful DH came home last night he was a good sport and went with me to the scene of the crime where he took care of the sad little dead squirrel. (OK, he did call me a "squirrel killer" until I threatened to bite HIM, so he wisely hushed up) We were quite a sight, wandering around in the dark with flashlights looking for the body, then picking up a dead squirrel (with gloves, of course) and putting him in a bag .... THAT would have been one of those hard-to-explain weird moments if someone had called the police. Fortunately, our neighbors already know that we're weird.

Watch out for sneaky sports bras and squirrels, that's my NEW motto.

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

Just three more days until Saturday, November 1 ... that's my 5-month mark on my healthy eating quest! It will be interesting to see where I'm at ... at that point! I had hoped to do better for the month of October than I did in September (month #4) because of increased biking ... and I'm pleased to say that I have! Woot! Woot!

I had two bicycling personal bests today:

1. Longest single ride (this morning) 13.75 miles
2. Most total miles biked in one day (this morning and this evening, combined)  19.25 miles

Not too shabby for a snarky fat chick pedaling along on a beach cruiser, huh?

[Jaguar]

I say that's DAMN FREAKING AWESOME actually.

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

YaY on your 13.75 miles!! That's AWESOME !! Way to Go!

I managed to put on 8 km on my stationary bike today - which last week was 5. Onward and upward. Gotta keep my gimpy legs active and the circulation flowing.

[Jaguar]

Keep going.

[lexxy703]

Between being fat and menopausal, I'm well past "hot blooded" and I've moved on to volcanic. An added bonus to this is that I'm freakishly popular with my heat-seaking cats (and wonderful DH) every winter ... if I sit down or lay down, I'm quickly swarmed and covered with cats. Who needs to turn on their central heat, anyway?

I'm just getting caught up & laughing my way through.

This quote is so true.  I probably don't have as many cats as you do but now that it is getting cool out & I keep the house sort of chilly for my comfort my cats think they are freezing to death & seek out my lap.

[Jaguar]

HAWT DAYUM !!!

[mmhmm]

Out-darn-standing, Molly! You're doing great! 

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

Thanks for the LIKES and the words of encouragement, everyone.

I actually lost 2 more pounds in October than I lost in September. I attribute that to increased biking and biking and biking. Yay! I don't expect month #6 (November) to be the same ... weather issues and the fact that I've been dieting so long will take a toll (slower metabolism, less of a calorie deficit). Still, my plan is to stay on track as much as possible with healthy and reasonable eating, and to try to bike some, weather permitting. Personally, I would love to lose about 10 pounds in November and another 10 pounds in December ... and start the new year down 130 pounds from my starting weight .... but we'll see what happens, right?

ONWARD!

[swamp]

Nice work!!!!!

and I feel for you in the sports bra. I once got trapped in mine after a particularly sweaty Zumba workout. I was changing in my office bathroom and somehow got hopelessly twisted up with it. I was in the verge of calling my secretary in the help me, when I finally managed to untangle myself. 

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

I biked 14.4 miles this afternoon (my new personal best for longest single ride)

[tractor]

Molly, just wanted to jump in here and let you know how awesome you are. Keep up the lifestyle change and before you know it you will be down another 100 lbs (although I have no idea if you even have that much more to loose). The winter months can be the toughest, but you have a great start and things can only get better for you!

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

There's nothing quite like riding a bicycle to both boost and deflate one's self-esteem in just a matter of minutes, LOL! As you know, I've been endeavoring to "bike my butt off" lately (I just checked ~ my butt's still there) ... which means I've been spending time pedaling around my neighborhood for the past 2 months. Just today, I biked 16 miles ... which is my new personal best for longest bike ride to date! Anyway, just as I was zipping along at what I thought was a decent pace (for a snarky fat chick on a single-speed beach cruiser) ... I was envisioning the triumphant ending to that great biking movie "Breaking Away" and I was humming the tune to "American Flyers" (another great biking movie.) Then, a man pushing 70 zoomed past me and pretty much deflated my ego, hahahahaha. It wasn't quite as humbling as the REALLY pregnant woman who lapped me on Monday as she ran past me, but it was close.

In my quest to expand my veggie horizons, I purchased a bag of heirloom red spinach from my local Trader Joes. Not only was it about twice the price of (apparently non-heirloom) green spinach, as far as I could tell it tasted EXACTLY the same. Why do I keep falling for this? This is the same thing that lured me into buying purple asparagus which ~ apart from costing twice as much as green asparagus ~ even turned green when it was cooked and tasted exactly the same! And the purple radishes from Whole Foods. And the purple cauliflower. Anyway, one decided downside to cooking heirloom red spinach is that the kitchen and my plate looked like the aftermath of the Hunger Games or a particularly graphic horror movie. Seriously, whose bright idea was it to have my veggies bleeding all over everything? I already endure THAT with beets!

Last winter, I wore shorts. Pretty much all winter long. Yes, we get cold here ... it dips into the 20s and 30s, though 40s and 50s are more common. But I was ridiculously fat last winter, enduring volcanic hot flashes, and I wasn't really outside when it was cold out. This year, I've come to the conclusion that (1) I'm less fat; and (2) biking outside causes quite a breeze  so ~ despite my hot flashes ~ I've decided that I actually needed to figure out some cooler-weather biking apparel to supplement my nifty and ever-growing collection of festively colored bike shorts. This is easier said than done because while I am 5'10" tall ... I'm weirdly long-torsoed and short-legged, so I actually need to buy petite length plus sized pants. (This still feels wrong to me, even after all these years ... because I'm relatively TALL!) I have come to the rather sobering conclusion that there's no way that I'm actually going to be happy with how I look wearing leggings while biking ... I should just suck it up, buttercup and buy some anyway because I don't want cold knees.

I do most of my shopping online and can I say that I remain mystified that large size clothing retailers seem to have absolutely no clue about what fat women might actually want to wear? Or that some fat women like me are remarkably flat chested? And it's also ridiculously hard to find workout clothes for really fat people, too. Anyway, I've perservered and given the mailman, UPS guy, and FedEx guys plenty of exercise delivering boxes and packages to my doorstep so I can then get a workout just trying things on. I now have clothes in 4 different sizes that all fit ... a sad testament to the fact that there's absolutely no rhyme or reason to how brands are sized these days. I opted for leggings in black and dark purple because I just wasn't ready for shiny gold (seriously?) or the most hideously bright salmon color I'd ever seen. "Vanity sizing" my butt ... just tell me clearly what will fit and what won't and stop wasting my time, O Fashion Industry. It's not like anyone except my wonderful DH and I are seeing what's written on the tag, anyway!

I was going to say that the scale seems to have stalled, but it really hasn't. As of Monday, I was down another pound to 111 total pounds lost. Since then, I've lost a whopping .4 as of this morning. I was grumbling about a plateau and my annoyingly cheerful spouse reminded me that a plateau is defined as going 2-3 weeks with no weight loss despite reduced calories and exercise ... and that losing .4 in 4 days certainly didn't qualify as a plateau. It's nice to be married to someone with common sense, isn't it? On another happy note, we're 3 days into an experiment to see if I can go completely OFF INSULIN ... and..... (drumroll, please) ... so far, so good! How very exciting is that!!?!?

[Jaguar]

Oh Molly, the insulin med issue is HUGE, congrats, congrats, congrats !

[Chocolate Lover]

That is awesome about the insulin Molly! 

[taz157]

Nov 6, 2014 16:40:35 GMT -5 Chocolate Lover said:

That is awesome about the insulin Molly! 

Yeah that!

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

Biked 18.6 miles today ~ a new personal best!

[Jaguar]

Nov 9, 2014 14:21:10 GMT -5 ❤ mollymouser ❤ said:

I've now lost 115.4 pounds.

That's nearly a whole me, I'm around 123 lbs. Awesome job Molly, that's really great.

[mmhmm]

I weight about 118 lbs, so you're very close to removing the equivalent of me!

[Chocolate Lover]

I think I may be finding those pounds you're losing Molly    I haven't found all of them though, thank goodness!

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

I biked 13.5 miles Monday.
I biked 16.4 miles yesterday.
I biked 14.8 miles today.

It takes me about 2 hours to bike that on my nifty purple-and-lime green beach cruiser. I can say that biking has made me pay a LOT more attention to the weather these days ~ especially today when it was breezy enough that I felt like I was bucking a headwind most of the time! Sadly, we live in one of the worst areas in the country for crappy air quality, and my poor little lungs are sore after today's ride. The plan is for tomorrow to be a "down day" (no biking), and then I'm working on Friday and Saturday ... so I'll get back in the saddle on Sunday after a 3-day respite. Since I'm also recovering from several biking injuries (including a pulled neck muscle, of all things), I'm rather giddy about taking a wee break. Maybe this will give time for the scale to CATCH UP AND SHOW A LOSS ALREADY! I know these things take time, but it would be nice if the scale would ~ I don't know ~ move DOWNWARD after all that biking!

I've ordered a high visibility lime green bike helmet from Amazon ... it should arrive soon. I also ordered a lime green skull cap thingy to go under the lime green helmet for when it starts getting REALLY cold. I told my wonderful DH who looked concerned and asked "We're going biking when it's REALLY cold?" (He doesn't know it, but I ordered him a nice blue skullcap for under his blue helmet!) When he's off work or home, he's actually a really good sport and cheerfully goes biking with me. I huff-and-puff for two hours and he sorts of glides along beside me. I am giving off litle sprinkler spritzes of sweat and I'm soaked and he's as cool as a cucumber. Then he comes home and RUNS ON HIS TREADMILL! Did I mention that he's in fine shape? Then again, he has to pass a rather vigorous PT (physical training) test every December and will lose his job if he doesn't pass ... so I like to think that I'm helping his career by asking him to come biking with me, ya know? Anyway, I figure I can get him to come biking with me ~ even in the cold ~ at least up until he passes his PT test! (I'm sure he'll still come after ... if he's not working ... he's a cool guy.)

Thanksgiving is coming up. All in all, it's a rather suckfest of a holiday for someone who's diabetic, dieting, and eating pretty low carb. We're going over to a friend's house (we've been a number of times in the past) ... and she serves turkey and carbs. Mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potato casserole, creamed corn. bread, stuffing, cranberry jelly, two kinds of pie, and deep fried carbs for appetizers. After confirming her menu this year, I asked if I could bring green beans and she said that I could. So we biked to Whole Foods over this past weekend and ordered enough green beans to serve 12. Which means that there should be plenty of green beans for me to keep at home and just not even take to her house, plus more than enough for me to take, eat most of, and share with the rest of her guests. My plan is to have turkey, one serving of mashed potatoes (no gravy) and a plate-full of fresh green beans.  Let's face it, it's not like I get to take a meal off from being diabetic ... and the ONLY way I can stay off insulin is to obsessively limit my carbs.  While everyone else in America is lamenting what to do with leftover turkey, I'll be plowing through my leftover green beans (grin).

We took three more garbage bags' worth of my clothes to the local Discovery Shop (that's the American Cancer Society Thrift Shop.) Apparently, if you lose more than 115 pounds (it's technically 115.4 pounds ... and I'm milking that point four for all its worth!) pretty much nothing in your wardrobe seems to fit properly any more. What can I say? Some happy fat chick who likes to shop there is getting some amazing deals. Let's hope she likes lime green and purple, right?

[Jaguar]

Go knock em' dead.

[snapdragon]

Molly I think it's great that you are trying to work around your friends T-Dinner plans. I probably would have turned down the invitation or arrived after the dinner for social hour. It's great on how positive you are being and I just adore your ramblings.

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

Thanks, Snapdragon. 

(We have a foster kitty named Snapdragon!) ... www.cathouseonthekings.com/adoption/cat.php?id=10384&n=Snapdragon

[mmhmm]

Aww! Snapdragon is too cute, Molly! Love the crossed eyes. 

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

I love vegetables!

[mmhmm]

Nov 13, 2014 21:07:19 GMT -5 ❤ mollymouser ❤ said:

I love vegetables!

YAY! Down is good!

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

Super great progress, ❤ mollymouser ❤! And I love "Snapdragon" - he's got the face of a little boy out to cause mischief!

He reminds me of my "Max" - who was more gray - I called him "Mad Max" since he was such a terror - but also a true cuddler.