You say potato, I say plateau

I have a routine for weigh in-days. This is probably not an uncommon thing for people who weigh themselves on a regular basis (like me) or for the obsessive compulsive.  On the night before a weigh-in, I drink at least 32 ounces of water before I go to bed, knowing full well that at 2:47AM I'll be awakened by my bladder. By 8AM, however, all of the water will have worked its way out and I like to pretend that I've washed out about 7 or 8 pounds off of my scale weight. I'm very fortunate to have access to a nice, quiet, no-nonsense digital scale in our house. It's a much less traumatic experience than when I have to hear the resounding CLANG of the 1940s throwback scale at my doctor's office. In fact, for me, the worst part of weigh-in days at home is the stripping down to your skivvies bit, especially since our scale is located right next to the full-length mirror. In Dr. Oz's book "You On A Diet", he strongly encourages the reader to be intentional about standing before a full-length mirror, completely naked, in order to zero in on the areas where the fat has settled on your body. I don't need to gaze at myself in a mirror to know where the fat has "settled". As far as I'm concerned my entire body is the Oregon Trail. I try to be objective about it but even now, despite the progress, whenever I take in my body's changing form, only one thing comes to mind: a half melted, soft serve cone. Nevertheless, when it comes to weigh-in days, I am a firm believer that any and all clothing can cost you 1 or 2 lbs, so off it goes.

The October weigh-ins have been excruciating. I've been 1 or 2 lbs away from the Big Goal, when I am officially out of the 200s, for the entire month. Going through the pre-weigh in process is frustrating in and of itself. Anxiously awaiting that split second for when the scale would tell me my destiny, like some teenage girl with a pregnancy test, is obnoxious. But seeing that I was still a measly pound away from my moment in the weight loss sun was painful. To me it was like the scale read "EPIC FAILURE" each time I stepped up. By the third weigh-in disappointment, I realized I was going through a plateau.

To plateau in the diet/exercise world is to have your weight loss progress come to a complete stand still. The word itself has a French origin, so when I hear plateau I envision the character Bomb Voyage from "The Incredibles" laughing maliciously every time I step off the scale and saying,"MUAHAHAHAHHAH! Ze fat girl wheel 'ave to work a leetle 'arder zis month!" while clutching a glass of wine in one hand and a block of cheese in the other. I actually googled 'Weight Loss Plateau" and read a bunch of articles on how to effectively break through them. This is what I found:

You can overcome a plateau in two ways:

1. Increase your work out routine by at least 30 minutes: I probably could work out more. I currently exercise six days a week, an hour or more each day (a hodgepodge collection of running, Spinning, strength training, kickboxing, zumba, Step, and HIIT). I could become the kind of person that gets up at 5 or 6, hits the gym, and then returns for the evening classes; however, on the days when I get up at 4 to get to 5AM Spin, I feel as though I've already gone through an entire day by 10AM. Perhaps, in time, my addiction to working out will spill over into the early morning hours. For now, I cherish my sleep. Another reason this option is difficult is that the classes I take are difficult for me. To say they're difficult in general is unfair to my instructors and to my classmates. They're obviously in different states of health (I try not to shoot daggers at Chrissy every time she says "C'mon guys! This is easy stuff!" I remember that 90% of the class probably does find the routine easy even if I'm a hot mess). For me, the thought of doing 30 minutes of anything before or after HIIT class is a rather frightening prospect. So while I'm not ruling this option out for the future, I cannot wrap my mind around it right now with my current schedule.

2. Lower your calorie intake by at least 200 calories a day: After my third disappointing step off with the scale, I realized that once again food was part of the problem. I thought about what I ate during the course of a day and decided I needed to kick the carbs. But the fact of the matter is that I'm not a stupid carb consumer. I say I love potatoes, but I rarely indulge in them. Since June I've cut refined sugar, dairy, and refined wheat products. My current carbs come in the form of Ezekiel bread, brown rice, fruit, and popcorn. These are not bad in and of themselves. The problem is that I'm just genetically a carb sensitive kind of gal. And I have issues with portions. I wish that I could be like my brother (in law) Beriah and eat 1/3 of a manicotti and not gain a pound. Unfortunately, I gain weight by walking by the manicotti. But on the day I decided to forsake the holy potato, I came to the conclusion that leaving the 200s behind was more important.

You may think that being a low carb vegetarian is next to impossible. It's more annoying than impossible, really. Because food is such a relational thing for me, it really bugs me when I have to explain to someone why I won't be indulging in their "best" recipe for pound cake that evening so that I can chomp on some cucumbers instead. To me, refusing is almost insulting; but if I don't start saying "no" to food at church functions, I'm going to regain the 53 lbs before Advent.Case in point: every Sunday for the past 10 years, the same group of friends have come over for a communal, themed meal. Now that I'm low carb, I'm sort of out of luck on "Casserole" night. This Sunday is "Comfort Foods". None of my friends find baked tofu very comforting. The good news is that in the five years since I became vegetarian, they have been more than accommodating about making their dishes "Angie-friendly". I'm sure that if I were to keep the low carb thing up long enough, this new, annoying change will some day become normative and they'll throw me a bone. And by bone, I mean kale chip.

What makes the transition to low carb smoother this time around is the fact that I cooked for a vegetarian, Waldorf pre-school in Portland for nearly two years and have familiarized myself with any and all forms of vegetable protein. I'm not just existing on eggs and beans, but have expanded to tofu, tempeh, seitan, TVP (textured vegetable protein) and vital wheat gluten. It comes in handy around week 2 when I start getting antsy for different foods. Nevertheless, I expected the typical South Beach withdrawal symptoms during my first week. In the past whenever I went the low carb route, I was very moody those first few days away from my bread and potatoes. I'd have killer headaches, gut-wrenching cravings, and detailed dreams involving cakes and potato chips. In short, I was a hot mess. I expected to go through all this and more, especially since it takes a lot of discipline to exercise regularly and restrict your food intake. I really didn't think I had any discipline to spare after exercising all week. But then the strangest thing happened: nothing. I wasn't pissed, I didn't freak out when Rachael baked Isaac's birthday cake and cupcakes, and I haven't had many strong cravings. I feel...good. I feel like I might actually be able to do this. I don't know if the endorphin high is leveling out the withdrawal, but I actually feel like I'm finally on the right track now that my eating is in balance with my exercising.

That said, after Day 3, I wanted to see some results on the scale. Feeling great is fine and all, but if I'm giving up mashed potatoes and continuing to plateau, I might start making some desperate moves (I momentarily considered eating fish). On Sunday, I stripped down and hopped on the scale and there it was; I finally saw my 1. My friend Michelle told me that on Biggest Loser the contestants call this "One-derland". I don't know how to really describe the exact moment except to say that I cried (of course. I'm such a sissy) and I bear hugged Rachael in the hallway. She didn't understand why I kept screaming, "I saw the 1! I saw the 1!" I think she probably assumed I was watching Korean dramas again and was overly exuberant about my attraction to Asian men.

Even though this was one of those blindingly happy moments of my life, I stand by what I wrote in an earlier post. I am scared about what it will mean when I am finally at my "healthy weight" on the other end of this 1. There's a lot of vulnerability to being a thinner girl. I feel like I need to somehow toughen up before I get to that point. The other thing, which is difficult for me to admit out loud, is that I'm still kind of waiting to fail. This is just a small, doubtful voice of past failed experiences in health that dwells in the back of my mind. I usually ignore it, especially when I have amazing moments like I did on Sunday.  But I'm still used to being on the other side of 200, the side that I know. At the end of the day, though, what keeps me pushing forward can be summed up by something that my cousin Jodie recently said to me at a baby shower. She said that from what she reads on Facebook and from the past few times that she has seen me in person, I seem like a happier person. And that's just it, I guess. I am happy. I will never ever say something as foolhardy as "There's nothing that tastes as good as skinny feels". Clearly the quote is not from an Italian person. I will say that I am much happier now that food isn't my sole identity. I can still cook, but it's not all that I am. I am a person that is capable of losing 53 lbs, of walking 10 miles in Relay for Life, of running 5Ks, of being the kind of person that I really never thought I could ever be; of being like the people in my gym classes, really.

When I stepped off of the scale on Sunday, I saw this next year as one fulled with infinite possibilities.

So with that said, on to Round 2 (ding!)