The First 100 Pounds (71 - 80)

I'm not a doctor and I don't even play one on TV. Although I would, if the money were right.

If you want to start from the beginning, you can do so here. Here are 71 – 80:

71. I TAKE A MINUTE TO APPRECIATE MY STRENGTH WHEN IT SURPRISES ME

Sometimes, it's putting my hands on my hips and realizing there's muscle there. Sometimes it's what I can lift or how quickly I can move. It doesn't matter—if I notice it, I take a minute to appreciate it. Seconds, really.

72. I FEEL MY MUSCLES.

I know I've mentioned this before, in terms of celebrating (or at least acknowledging) my successes, but I also do it if I need a little pick-me-up. If I need to get my energy up for a run, I might slap my thigh or flex my calf. It sounds totally self-absorbed when I write it like that, and maybe it is, but I don't care. Does it work? Yes? Then I put it on this list (other criteria for this list: Can I use it to make a joke? Do I have anything to say about it? Did I think of it?). I make other people feel my muscles, too. Except the mailman. Damn restraining order.

73. I TAKE PRIDE

When I started continuous runs by distance instead of time, they were all between two and a half and three miles long. I ran three times a week, I walked hills a couple of days a week, and I took two days off. It was fine, but I knew I needed more challenges if I was going to stave off boredom, so I decided to extend one run a week, to do this "long run" that I'd been reading so much about. My first long run was three and a half miles. I had never run that far before in my life, and I was proud of myself. The next long run was four miles. Pride. My first five-mile long run was a major milestone for me, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it was the natural comfort of having a number that ended with a zero or a five (why do I like that so much?). At the end of those runs, I'd walk up to Jed and announce how far I'd run, and then I'd do a little body builder pose and say, Raaaaaaar! Because I was mighty. And I was proud.

74. I UNDERSTAND WEIGHT LOSS IS NOT A STRAIGHT LINE

People will tell you that losing weight is a calories in/calories out proposition. Those people are lying. Or oversimplifying, anyway. Sure, if I eat more calories than my body needs, I will gain weight. If I use more calories than I eat, I'll lose weight. But on a day-to-day basis, weight is also a factor of what I've eaten (carbs, which I need to run well, hold water—that's part of their job), whether I'm hydrated or not, how much salt I've eaten in the past day or so, hormonal shifts and other monthly changes, whether my body is in a phase of building muscle…I could go on. For me, the weight loss tends to run in a pattern that consists of trading the same three or four pounds back and forth for about three weeks, then losing five or six pounds in the course of about a week. It all just goes away at once. On a weekly basis, my diet and exercise routine are remarkably consistent. I have to look at it long term, because putting too much stake in my daily—or even weekly—weight will drive me crazy. I knew, for example, when I hit the 90-pounds-lost mark that I'd have about two months more before I hit 100. That did not stop me from riding the swings up and down as my body went through pretty much the EXACT SAME PROCESS IT HAS BEEN GOING THROUGH FOR THE PAST YEAR. Even though I understand it, and even though I know that losing a pound or so a week is the best way to keep weight off long-term—it makes me crazy. So I was glad to hit 100, in part because I can stop that particular obsession for a while. As I've mentioned before, intellectual knowledge is not always the same as emotional knowledge, and for obvious reasons I'm most content when they agree with each other.

75. I WEIGH MYSELF EVERY DAY

Experts differ on the wisdom of this. Early on, I didn't weigh myself at all—I let my clothing be my guide. Then, once I stopped being such a chicken, I started weighing myself once a week. Then twice. And eventually I came across some studies that said people who are successful at maintaining weight loss tend to weigh themselves every day. And since that fit into my naturally obsessive personality, that's what I latched onto. I don't tend to let my weight dictate anything—and it doesn't affect my mood or my behavior for more than a moment every morning anyway. It does help me keep on track, so I do it.

76. I DON'T DO IT FOR THE WEIGHT

I'm proud of the weight loss, I'm not gonna lie. But I do this because I love how strong I feel. I love setting goals and knocking them down. I love that I have become someone who knows how to power herself through a workout. I love the consistency and the control. I love knowing that I can outrun many of my friends during a zombie apocalypse (I'm looking at you, Mike).

77. I DO IT FOR THE WEIGHT

So all that in #74 and #76 up there, yeah. But also: I like how I'm beginning to look. And weight is one more goal that I can set up and knock down, so why not?

78. I TAKE THE COMPLIMENTS

This is a hard one. I am simply not good at this. When someone tells me I look good, or notices the muscles in my legs, or whatever, it's hard not to be self-deprecating or completely negate the compliment with some kind of explanation of where I want to be in 6 months or something equally diminishing. When you lose 100 pounds, people notice, and they tell you things like how good you look, or how great your skin looks, or whatever. When I wear skirts, someone often comments on how muscular my calves are. Here is what I have trained myself to say: "Thank you."

79. I WEAR SHORTER SKIRTS

Not super-short, but knee-length or above. I declared this to be the Summer of the Skirt, in part because I'm still shrinking out of clothes pretty quickly and skirts will last a little longer than shorts before they begin to look ridiculous, and in part because I like my legs. They're still bigger than I'd like them to be, but they're strong and getting more defined every week and I'm happy to have them. Plus, skirts are cute. Do I still own a couple of ankle-length skirts? I do. I'm a poet. I think it might be required. And they are also cute. But when it's 90 degrees out, something above the knee makes me much happier.

80. I STOPPED THINKING IN TERMS OF WHAT I DESERVE BECAUSE I DON'T THINK OF EXERCISE AS PUNISHMENT.

Look. Exercise is not punishment. When it felt that way to me, it was because I didn't enjoy the activity or because I was working too hard at it. I thought getting a "good workout" meant working so hard that I thought I was going to die. That is not fun (although as I gain fitness it can be sort of fun to figure out where that point is). I'm not a fan of team sports—I like exercise where the only person I'm letting down when I screw up is me. I'm not a fan of weight training because I find it boring. I like yoga because it forces me out of my all-or-nothing mentality and makes me focus on doing what's right for me. There's no schedule, no "should be able to do this by now," no ranking of top yogis (or maybe there is and I just don't know about it). There's just me, trying not to fall over. I like it. I like running because of the 8 million reasons I've stated on this blog already: the challenge, the meditative aspects, the personal goal-setting, etc.

That's all a long introduction to this: when you enjoy what you're doing, you don't need to reward yourself for having done it. I don't eat ice cream after a workout because I've "earned" it. I don't get a new running outfit because I "deserve" it. When I do eat ice cream, it's because I enjoy it. When I get a new running outfit, it's because I need it (or because it's super-cute). I'm not constantly bargaining with myself, and I'm neither undoing the progress I'm trying to make with exercise by eating ice cream all the time nor constantly trying to figure out what my next reward should be. The running is a reward. If it weren't, I'd have to find something else, because I wouldn't be able to stick to it.