Weight Loss Challenge

For the past 6 years I have been trying to lose 10 lbs that I suddenly gained in two months.  I could see the pounds sticking on me but could not do anything to stop them! Why did I gain 10 lbs in two months? I don't know: maybe I was not feeling well, maybe it was my age, maybe I was stressed, maybe, maybe maybe....But whatever the reason, I have been trying to get rid of those 10 lbs ever since.  Before that 10 lb gain I was trying to lose the 5 lbs I had gained earlier on! So now it was a total of 15 lbs that I needed to lose. Darn!

It has been six years and I have not lost a single pound. Well I lost 5 but gained them back in one year.  This is an ongoing challenge I have in my life. I am so tired of carrying out these extra 15 lbs. And since this summer, I have added on 5 more! So darn it - now it 20 lbs that I need to get rid of!! The saddest part is whatever I put on just does not want to leave me!! What the heck is going on??

So here is what I have done in the past 5 years to lose the extra padding on my body.

The first try - The Gym: I have been an avid fan of the gym ever since I came to the USA. University of Toledo had a great new gym and I had lost 10 lbs of my body weight working out 4 times a week.  Oh those days were something else!! I continued going to the gym in Buffalo, Vancouver and then in Parkville.  I enjoy working out. It is very satisfying and I feel good about myself.  One hour is the typical amount of time I used to spend in the gym.

Anyway, so I joined the gym in Winchester also. It was a great gym called Anytime Fitness. I could go anytime and workout without anyone interfering in my routine. And since it was a new gym all the machines were new and there was hardly any crowd.  My teaching load was not much, so I started going 4-5 times a week.  My routine was a combined 40 mins of walking, elliptical or the stairmaster.  And then about 40 mins of weight training.  Since I used to have a personal trainer in Park University, I know how to mix and match.  After 5 months of this routine guess how much weight I lost - a big fat ZERO!! 

That was very disappointing for me.  But I had the membership so I continued to go but the enthusiams was not there.

The second try - The South Beach Diet: This is based on high protein and low carbohydrate diet.  Okay...I am a vegetarian, this would be hard for me, but I had to give it a try.  So much so I cut out all the sugar, which is the hardest thing for me to do since I had to give up my favorite thing - tea.  But I gave it up for 2 months.  I became creative in my cooking and very stingy in my eating. I developed a taste for Diet coke with lime which was my alternative to tea. As per the South Beach Diet plan, after 2 months I added little bit sugar to my diet - only in tea and in once a week dessert.  How much weight did I lose after 3 months of this routine? A big fat ZERO!!

Another big disappointment for me! But I knew there must be something going on in my body. So I got my hormones checked.

The third try - Thyroid + Gym: So it turned out I had a little, teeny tiny, hypothyroidism.  No problem. Bring on the drugs. I took some of the hormone and still went to the gym with the hope that the thyroid would help in boosting my metabolism. But no - zip - nothing.  My body was in love with the 10 lbs of fat.

It was time to move to Florida in 2009.  The first year was very stressful for me, buying a house, adjusting to the new college and new city. But I still managed to find time to go to my community gym.  As usual, I went but my fat did not. 

So comes around 2011 summer time, when I spent my two and a half month vacation in India.  It was the months of June, July and part August. It was bloody hot in India with only a fan in the room. No problem. It was my decision to go to India in the hot weather and I would bear the hotness.

I ate very simple food for lunch and dinner, but always had good breakfast. I had tea/coffee whenever I wanted. I did walk a lot during my first month of being in India and during that one month I managed to lose 5 lbs!! I was beyond happy!! Unbelievable.  This was awesome.  I never did lose the next 5 lbs. And the saddest part is that I gained those 5 lost lbs right back when I came back to USA.  So I think the stress my body went through during the first month of being the hot weather caused me to lose the weight but not sustain it.

All of this has been anticlimactic for me.  But my determination is not gone.  I am still on the path.....keep reading!

Anticlimax

For the first time in sooo many years I am not feeling the light headedness of the end of the semester as I used to. What happened this year? Why this feeling of emptiness?

At work I have been supremely busy. It is not just the teaching, but being the chair of the department, being on two search committees (for the same darn position), having routine study session with students, teaching two night classes, participating in college stuff, making the schedule for summer and fall....it goes on and on.  On top of that trying to make travel plans for summer. 

This year the biggest drains on me, mentally, were three people - A, B and C.  All three of them have been so entrenched in my life this year that they have made my very normal routine life an emotional one.  They could have made it easier if they were just normal but I am realizing more and more that people are not normal.  They are mostly selfish, self-centered and immature and don't realize the effect they have on the other person. 

Just trying to keep my head on straight has been tough.  I had to try much harder to stay focused, practical and emotionally stable this year.  And it has been hard - very hard. I am so exhausted that I don't even know what I want anymore.  I keep getting this feeling that I have to go to work on Monday, when I am on vacation for the next three months.  That is how preoccupied I have been.

As much as I feel supported by a lot of people around me, I also feel there are very few people I can really trust and talk to. Everyone seems to have an agenda.  They are only looking out for themselves, whereas I am looking at the big picture.  

ABC were definitely not my friends (read my blog on friends) but sadly they were not even the normal kind of people; I seriously misunderstood their intentions.  I so badly wanted it all work out. But the harder I tried the harder I fell. I want to give the benefit of doubt to people and trust them. But of course I learnt the hard way that trust is earned not given. Yet again my romance with life taught me lesson.  As a result I became this discontented kind of person who was always complaining about people and things, when really I am such an easy going person.  And of course all this came out as anger in some cases but more often it comes out in tears.  Which can be really emotionally exhausting. 

All in all this year has been anticlimactic of what I was hoping for.

I am hoping that the summer can bring closure to some things and rejuvinate my spirit.  And finally I can just hope that the next year is better than this year.