Friday, October 31, 2008

Fitness Friday: Our Stories Edition

First of all, some good news ('cause I'm not so sure my measurements are going to BE good news this week!) Look what I fit into this week:
Yeah! I got it on and off. It's still a bit tight to be comfortable. Add the fact that I'm not used to wearing it anymore...anyway, I'll give it another week or two and I'm sure I'll be back to wearing my wedding ring full-time. I can't wait!

Now. I was 7 pounds, 14 ounces at birth, which was fairly big back then. I was bone skinny growing up, much like my Sweetheart is now. In 4th grade, my friend's father nicknamed me "Stringbean." It fit. I don't have them available, but the pictures of me roller skating down the sidewalk? Makes you wonder how my legs didn't snap in half. I was really skinny.

As a result of my excellent metabolism, I ate all the time. My dad used to tease me that I didn't have a tape worm, I had a tape snake. I never had to practice self-control and so I never really learned it. When my eating started making the pounds come to visit and stay...I didn't adjust properly. Enough psychology.

I was 5' 6" in high school and weighed 110 pounds. (And for lunch every day I ate nachos, a Grape-Ade, and a large chocolate chip cookie. Every. Day.) Looking back I don't think I properly appreciated that weight! When I got married I was 5' 7" and weighed 132 pounds. One day after I had been teaching a few years, Glenda, one of the cafeteria ladies where I taught said, "Mrs. E, you're pickin' up." I had no idea what that meant. It meant I was picking up weight. Thanks for pointing that out, Glenda. I can't fault Glenda. She once confessed to me that her boobs weighed X amount of pounds. How did she know? She threw them up on the scale in the kitchen!!! Oh that woman was entertaining.

I was between 140-150 pounds when I got pregnant with Sweetheart. That pre-baby weight was really a good weight for me, by the way. I'm not really happy to say that I packed it ON during my pregnancy. I got up and ate breakfast sometimes at 4:30 in the morning because I was starving and then ate breakfast again when I got to school. I know my gain was over 50 pounds that first time. And now my favorite quote ever:

"He was a beautiful baby boy but, sad to say, he did not weigh 60 pounds. That is what I had gained and that is what I had to lose." --Barbara Bush

I so hear you Barbara. But the thing is, I didn't lose it. Four years later along came Little Bit. And I gained some more that I didn't ever lose. But I still thought I was skinny. CONSTANTLY I was surprised by photos of myself. Do I really look like that?

But it didn't end with babies. Oh no. After Little Bit was born I quit work and lived in jeans and sweat pants for a year. It seems that jeans and sweatpants don't give you a really good idea of your proportions. Imagine my surprise when none of my old work clothes fit anymore. Huh. By then I had already begun telling myself that it wasn't so bad. And I didn't care. Then, that fateful e-mail to Karly and BOOM! Fitness Friday was born.

Boy I'm getting motivated again just writing this! And that's good because my motivation was waning this week Ladies. I could have done a whole lot better. But still, I'm doing better than I was a month ago. That's for sure.

My end goal in all this (for now) is to fit into a size 12. I think for my height a size 12 is a really good size. And I think that goal is achievable. Right now I'm a size 16 and I'm happy to say that there was a lot of hitching of the pants this week. They aren't falling off yet, and I'm not thinking I would fit a 14 YET...but they were loose. Loose is good.

Wedding rings are better!

Have a great Friday everyone!


13 comments:

  1. Yay for you! I am so happy for you that it fits! That's excellent progress.

    And just for the record, I wouldn't have know what "picking up" meant either! LOL

    Great goal, and great encouragement!

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  2. Congrats for the success! I am 5'9" and am working towards getting back into my size 12 too. Funny how I used to think that was big compared to all of my friends but 12 is great! I have a ways to go but I can do it. You can do it - so great to be able to put the rings on again.

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  3. Congrats on getting your ring on. Mine must have been big already because except for during my pregnancies, I've always been able to wear them. Go figure!

    It seems size 12 is the goal of many of us. Well, at leat 3 of us anyway.

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  4. I'm glad your ring fits you! After my first child was born I couldn't get my ring off, I let it stay stuck forever and when he was about 1 year old I needed to have surgery. I had to have the ring off before I went in and I tried all these tricks to get it off (soap, butter, wrapping my whole finger in dental floss) but nothing worked. I ended up having to go to the jeweler and have the thing CUT off my finger. I was SO embarressed. I got it fixed a year or so later and by then I had finally lost the baby weight.

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  5. Yay! You're married again! :) That is so great your ring fits. There is nothing like it, huh?

    And, I so agree with you about jeans and sweatpants. I am glad it's getting to be cooler weather. I can wear these things again.

    OH, and I would love to be a size 12, too. :)

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  6. Oh, that's no big deal. I can wear my wedding ring too. Of course, it requires that I plunge my hand into a bucket of ice water for a minute or so first. :(

    That's a great measure, actually! Congratulations.

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  7. Congratulations on wearing your wedding ring!! How fantastic is that??!! What a wonderful sign of progress!

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  8. Yay! Congratulations!

    I'm finally better after my surgery - can I join in? What do I need to do?

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  9. Rachel, just start posting whatever Friday you want to. This week's assignment was to tell our "weight timeline" and what our end goal is. You can wait until next week if you want to--or jump right in!
    We also usually share our goals for the week and tell how we did.

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  10. It's the little things that count--the pants hitching up & the fingers being smaller & being able to actually PUT ON things that before weren't even close to fitting...

    YAY!!!

    Good for you & thanks again for starting this--it is such a blessing to me. I know I've been at this for over a year, but I still find such comfort, motivation, & accountability by participating in the Fitness Friday posts.

    We will shrink together, ladies!

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  11. Just wanted to say that I walked two miles today for the Walk-a-Thon at church. It felt great...

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  12. Oops--forgot with all the Trunk or Treat hub-bub.

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  13. congratulations on your success. it must be great to get your ring on again...mine is stuck on and i would love to get it off(no offense to my husband)

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I don't get to talk to a lot of actual grown-ups during the day, so your comments make me really happy! :)