trying to fight the in between.

Too many words, not enough pictures.

I'm not going to lie, I've been feeling pretty crummy about myself lately. It's stupid, I know. But when you go through a process that takes such a long time, your expectations adjust along with your pants size and all of a sudden your triumphs are lost to yesterday and you begin to feel like who you are, what you do, and how you do it aren't good enough.

For the sake of starting an argument (with myself), I'm going to go on record and say that it's NOT good enough. This, of course, is judging by the measuring stick of weight loss.

My purpose all along has been health and not the number on the scale, but I have an appointment with my ophthalmologist in a few hours and one with my neurologist tomorrow morning and I am almost certain that I'm going to waste two $10 co-pays to be told that I've made no progress.

I've been sweetening the pot with thoughts like, "you're an awesome runner!" and "you maintained your weight during the holidays!" and I'm proud of my accomplishments. But my health... still a problem.

I've been fretting about what to do. I feel so lost. I don't remember how it was in the beginning (despite my desperate attempts to record every thought along the way) and up until this morning, I had no idea what to do next.

The answer: start at the beginning.

The first few entries of this blog were a combination of a food journal, an exercise journal, and a measurements journal, because all I had at the time were numbers. So, numbers it is. The feelings came later, and so it shall be that way again; to the storage closet my feelings will go!

10 January 2013
current weight: 223.0

#	1/25/2011	3/05/2012	7/18/2012	1/10/2013
Bust	47.5	45.0	43.75	43.0
Chest	44.5	39.0	37.5	37.5
Waist	44.0	40.0	38.5	38.5
Hips	54.5	51.0	47.5	47.5
Thighs, L/R	30.5/30.0	28.5/28.5	27.75/27.75	27.5/27.5
Calves, L/R	20.0/20.5	20.5/20.0	18.0/18.0	17.25/17.5
Upper Arms, L/R	17.5/17.5	16.5/16.5	15.0/15.75	15.5/16.0
Forearms, L/R	12.5/13.0	11.5/12.5	11.75/11.5	/11.5/11.5

The numbers mostly stayed the same and I don't necessarily like that, but I have to remember that I'm not here to analyze myself, I'm here to record. So there you have it, my numbers as they are at this very moment.

For later:
running stats - 5.08 km in 34:59 (6:53/km pace, 521 calories burned)
food journals -
        no time for lunch: two pieces of deli turkey, a handful of slivered almonds, water
        dinner: greek salad (lettuce, cucumber, tomato, olives, feta cheese, balsamic vinaigrette)
        snacks: 1 cup french vanilla coffee with splash of milk, 1 orange, 1 bag of Tomato flavored cracker crisps (om nom nom)