Mid June Gloom...

Okay, so I wrote at the end of May that I was going to work on getting the scale numbers to budge in June and we are now two weeks in. I also had my follow up appointment for my ankle this week so I figured it was time to do some updates.

I went in to Dr. Bettencourt basically to see what I should be aiming for. Like right now my ankle on a bad day is better than it used to be on a good day. There are long stretches where it doesn't hurt at all. And for years there has been a constant ache there even when it was what I would have called fine. I'm at the point where sometimes first thing in the morning it's a little stiff and sore. Sometimes at the end of a workout it's a little achy. After an intense round of PT it would be a little angry. And if you poke it it's pissy. But so much better than it was.

I started jogging on it a few weeks ago and I've had no issues. But it's not perfect. There are the aches I listed up there. Should I be looking for completely pain free? Is that the goal?

And he said...Umm...WOW! I'M THE WORLD'S GREATEST DOCTOR! THIS IS AMAZING! Maybe not exactly like that, but really close. He was super excited with the level of improvement I've gotten. The area that is still sore is actually an area that wasn't treated so the spots where he did the needling are all healed. He did not expect that. So yeah. I'm doing well. I can start ramping back up.

Slowly. I mean I shouldn't dash right out and run a 5K, I need to get back there again, but I can do that. Which is good, because I already had been. But good to have the clearance from the doctor now.

So I can start pushing my workouts again. I'll add squats back in to the rotation next week and see how they go. That's about the only thing I haven't really tried yet. And if I want to he will do the same procedure on that smaller area that's still sore. For now I'm passing on that. It would put me right back at the start again and it doesn't hurt enough for me to think the pain of the procedure is worth it.

Which brings us to the scale portion.

I started out by cutting out the weekday sugar again. I haven't been avoiding it like I was and I thought that maybe that midweek snacking was keeping the weight up. So the first week of the experiment I ... okay, let's back up. From Friday when I did my last weigh in for May and started the chart for this June experiment to Monday morning when I weighed in I had gained like 3 pounds. In A WEEKEND. Okay, so that's impossible. You cannot lose or gain that much actual weight in that short of an amount of time. Then Brent mentioned that he had done the same, so clearly we ate something that made us both retain a ton of water. Something extra salty in there.

But what it meant was that by Friday when I did my measurements I was basically back to where I started so I decided to give it another week.

And...

Okay, let's back up...

Ha! Nah, there is no backup here. I gained weight. Sort of. I mean it was a small enough amount that if I had lost it I would say I was flat week to week but since it went up I say gained. Because my brain is broken like that.

Which means that it's time to start something else. Which is counting calories. Which I've been wrapping my head around for the past two weeks. That it was probably coming. Tracking. Writing it down. Counting it out. Going to bed a little to a lot hungry. Cutting down on what I'm eating. And then cutting it again. Because for me to lose weight I always have to cut down a lot. So much so that when Brent first saw my calorie allotment years ago he said, "that's not enough" well yeah, it's not, that's the point. Always being on that edge of not quite enough.

And...

I'm not going to do it. I have been trying and trying to convince myself that it's worth it because I don't like being the weight I am right now. But I don't hate it enough to diet. I hate dieting. I hate counting calories and I hate cutting out food groups and I hate that it triggers my brain to do really unhealthy things so I have to constantly be monitoring myself and asking other people to monitor me. I hate that even though I'm pretty honest and upfront about it, the level of crazy in my head is much worse than I ever share with anyone else. It gets really dark in there when I am dieting.

And I just can't do it right now. Can't as in I can't even... I just don't want to. I don't have the drive to do what it takes to accomplish that. I just don't.

So I will keep ramping up my workouts. I will switch over to summer skirts and dresses that I think I have a handful that fit okay and I will see where I am in a few months. And then I will rebuild a wardrobe that fits and is comfortable. Because that's really why I don't like my weight. My clothes don't fit nicely. I don't feel comfortable in them or in my own skin right now.

But I think I can work on that easier than I can force myself to count calories.

Because I just don't want to. And that's the first step in doing something like that, you have to really want to. You have to hate where you are more than you hate what you have to do to move. The same reason why I don't want to get that last spot on my ankle done. It's not painful enough to go through the procedure. I don't hate my weight enough to go through a diet.

So there's the updates. I'm released to work out as hard as I want to. And I'm going to eat what I want while I do it. If I change my mind I'll let you know.