Category: Piling It On (and taking it off)

Tales of weight gain, weight loss, and being healthy.

Because I can’t focus on something more meaningful while my son drools all over my face, I will write about going to the gym.

After tweaking with my weekly routine a little I think I finally found a groove for getting to the gym. I’m getting there three times a week, all at different times of the day, which is fantastic for my love people-watching.

I think my favorite time of the day is on Mondays when I go late in the morning just before lunch. All the Blue Hairs are there and they are so cute with their peach colored sweat pants and swollen ankles. Usually I see the Blue Hairs on the treadmill, walking painstakingly slow as they hang on to the side bars for dear life. But this week I saw an elderly woman working through the circuit weight training, and when we smiled at each other I had an urge to say “YOU GO GIRL!” but because I’m not one who talks to people I stuck to the nodding and smiling.

I gained another five pounds in my hiatus from the gym, making a total of 40 pounds gained since before I became pregnant with Ruthie over three years ago. I tried not to let this paralyze me, but just see it for what it is. I reminded myself that I first joined the gym last year not for sole purpose of losing weight, but because I just needed to move my body more and quit being so lazy.

It turns out I’m one of those sick people who loves to work out. The hard part for me is actually getting out the door, but once I get on that elliptical machine and the endorphins kick in I kind of lose myself in the music the moment you own it you better never let it go. The other day I actually closed my eyes and threw my head back as I imagined myself jogging along the river by my house.

SUCH a nerd.

So much for fresh starts, but the week is not a total loss.

This was the week I was to start back up at the gym. I even worked it into my calendar so I wouldn’t be tempted to brush it off. But alas, my children both came down with congested, croup-y coughs last night making me unable to leave them in the gym’s childcare room.

But despite that disappointment we are having a fantastic day. I have alternated between busy-work and playing with Ruthie, a routine I cooked up last week that has been a winner for both of us. Now I can set her in a chair with a pile of books while I clean the kitchen, because she knows that when I am done we will play dress-up. After playing for a bit I sit her at the table to color while I sweep and mop, then we have a snack together. And so on.

I feel amazing these days. The old, fun, Jennifer seems to have returned. I am full of energy, emotional clarity, motivation, and determination. We watch a lot less t.v. There are aspects of my temper I will never overcome simply because I am not perfect, but these days when I find myself on the edge of an explosion I can somehow communicate to Ruthie in the moment that she needs to shush and just give mommy a minute, at which point I walk away and take a few breaths.

But even these explosions are coming fewer and farther between as I seem to be irritated by less. It used to be when Ruthie asked for a Band-Aid for her imaginary scrapes I scolded her for even asking. I don’t know why it bugged me so much, but I became ENRAGED at the mere INQUIRY of a Band-Aid. But just yesterday Ruthie and I were silly and put band-aids on all our fingers.

I can’t explain this change. Maybe it’s a God-thing, maybe the hormones shifted after weaning Thomas, maybe time has just settled and I am officially no longer Post Partum. Likely, it is all of the above. All I know is that I am now on a quest to get off this godforsaken medication that leaves me feeling like a ten year old girl – totally in love with Bryan, completely in favor of snuggling and hanging out at the movies, but oh so uninterested in the Marital Dance.

Yesterday I started talking half pills of the Zoloft, which Bryan is in full support of. He’d definitely like to ditch the ten year old and get his wife back.

6 Trips x 6 Garments = 36 Clothing changes (Does this count as a cardio workout?)

Oh, really. Why do I continue to do this to myself?

Today I went shopping for an outfit to wear to a holiday party we are attending on Saturday. A holiday party in which I will be meeting EVERYONE for the first time. A holiday party I am really looking forward to except that I feel fat, frumpy, AND my highlights have all grown out.

Did I mention that this holiday party is the Superbowl of First Impressions?

Anyhow, I figured that since it was a holiday party, and since I would be meeting people for the first time, and since I haven’t been to a fun holiday party in several years, I should find something to wear besides my usual jeans and sweat pants.

I started at Marshall’s because I needed some new tights to fit my post partum ass, and I can get designer tights there for five bucks.

I knew better than to search for new pants. We’ve already established there are no petite length fat pants. So I started in on the skirts. Long skirts. Long bushy skirts to hide my entire body.

I entered the dressing room no less than six times in one hour, and still came away with just ONE skirt that’s more appropriate for a hippie-theme party than a holiday party.

My problem is that I’m STILL the fat girl who pictures herself as thin. I am WAY in denial.

Blah

I’ve been moving slow this week. Bryan was gone all weekend at a geek thing so Ruthie and I spent a lot of time in our pajamas. And today I don’t have a car to go anywhere, so once again we are still in our pajamas.

It seems I’m becoming That Wife who lets herself go, wearing raggedy sweat pants, bed head, no make-up, and a spit-up stained shirt. I’m waiting for someone to turn me in to What Not to Wear – although I think I could live with the humiliation in exchange for a $5K NY shopping spree.

I’ve become listless and unmotivated again, and don’t even look forward to play dates with friends anymore. I just want to sit in my pajamas, alone, in front of the t.v. and eat chocolate chip cookies and drink lots of wine. I’m wondering if the Zoloft is wearing off, or maybe I’m just using depression as an excuse to be lazy.

How does one figure these things out?

I’m chubby, and it’s finally getting to me. You can only use the I Just Had A Baby excuse, or the I Have To Keep Up the Calories for Nursing excuse for so long before people raise their eyebrows at your third bowl of cereal for dinner.

I think what finally got to me was looking through the Eddie Bauer holiday catalogue that came to me in the mail. I love Eddie Bauer clothes, but I realized as I looked through it that I still picture myself as looking the way I did before Ruthie was born. I have been in denial of my reality. I have become the person I secretly mock and judge when I see her at the mall – the chubby girl who still dresses as if she’s skinny.

But that’s not the only thing that horrifies me. What is most horrifying to me right now is that I just don’t give a damn. I don’t care what I eat, what I wear, or who sees me doing it.

I just don’t care.

He should really teach all young men everywhere how to extract the truth from tired, chubby, stay at home moms

The other day I dropped in to the DMV to renew my driver’s license thanks to the lovely bank teller who informed me that my ID had expired a month ago and I’m sorry very much that I can’t give you twenty of your own dollars because an expired ID renders your existence to the dust of the earth.

At the DMV I was assisted by a very dreamy man who was delicious in every way except that he was wearing a navy blue cardigan sweater and he was working at the DMV.

After changing my address, he looks at me very diplomatically and says in his smooth and dreamy voice, “Height, five-two?”

“Yes,” I said, knowing the question that was coming next.

“Now it says here that you are 120….”

He leaves it hanging open for me to finish the sentence, and just like that I get busted for ten years of lying about my weight on my ID.

“Here’s the thing,” I lean in and lower my voice. “One-twenty is a bit optimistic, but does it really hurt anyone to just leave that on there?”

His smooth and dreamy voice says something about accidents on the highway and police needing to identify bodies, and I interrupt.

“Okay, I get it. How about we just say one-fifty,” I say, as if we’re farmers bartering the price of a cow. “It’s still a little optimistic, but more in the ballpark.”

He smirks, and with that smooth and dreamy voice he says, “Hey, now, you have nothing to worry about, you’re a beautiful woman.”

I nearly forgot I was married, and that he was wearing a cardigan sweater, and I almost offered to buy him a drink.

Loop Hole

Because I’ve tried to turn off the TV and do more writing and reading I’ve been a little out of the loop regarding current events. Apparently the Boeing machinists strike has ended, Peter Jennings died, and Northwest Airlines has gone bankrupt.

These days I rely on the gossip magazines at the gym to keep me informed of all the Hollywood drama, but often their copies are outdated. I’m still reading about Brad and Jen’s divorce.

Today, however, I happened across a current US magazine while on the treadmill and learned that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner were married and expecting a baby, like, yesterday.

WHAT THE — ??

Last I heard there were rumors of their relationship. Now I suddenly see pictures of her out to HERE with child and he’s packing up his poker table to baby proof the house.

I should have come up for air long ago. Is there anything else I should know about?

Real Women Have Curves

I love the fitness club I go to. Aside from the fact that it’s a women’s only club (no sweaty jocks), normal people work out there.

I don’t like working out next to women with tight butts who eat carrot sticks all day long. I much prefer the women who, like me, just need to keep moving so as to not melt into the couch. Women who, like me, follow up a great workout by drinking lots of water and gorging an entire roll of Ritz crackers because they are so buttery they are better than chocolate.

(Well, maybe not BETTER, but at least AS GOOD as chocolate and somehow more justifiable.)