The swimsuit shopping nightmare

If you think you're looking okay in your clothes, and maybe you're not such a fat slob after all, go try on swimsuits. Holy crap! I was in tears at the end of my shopping trip today. I came home without a new swimsuit and a whole new perspective on how my body looks (and it's not good!).

I decided I want to start swimming at the gym a couple mornings a week, to kind of mix things up a bit. One of cardio rooms at my gym has windows that look down on the swimming pool. It's almost always empty at 5 a.m. I thought it would be kind of fun to try something different. Two years of StairMaster, elliptical, stationary bike, treadmill (which I loathe), and crossramp workouts are starting to bore me a little.

After trying on several suits I realized the importance of losing this last 20-30 pounds. It's time to really get off my butt and get serious about getting to goal.

My weighin today was less than stellar at 166.2. Exactly what I weighed a week ago. It's also what I weighed March 25, 2009 and December 7, 2008. Seriously, it's time to stop my playing around with this and just get to my goal weight of 135-145 (not sure which yet).

What I did wrong last week:

1. An entire week of not tracking my food.

2. An entire week of not weighing or measuring my food.

3. Skipped my Weight Watcher meeting

4. This one is obvious, but I ate too much.

5. I didn't post a single thing on my blog, and read very few weight loss blogs.

What I did right last week:

1. Worked out five times, one to one and half hours each time. High intensity

2. Didn't touch sugar. I think this is week five or six of no sugar.

3. Didn't binge eat.

4. Ate healthy food.

What I'm going to do this week to get to goal:

1. Up the workouts to six times a week (adding in one or two swimming sessions).

2. Weigh and measure everything I eat.

3. Track my food...and I mean it this time.

4. Attend my Weight Watcher meeting - which I did today.

5. Post something every single day on this blog. Staying away from the blog world is a real detriment to me. I'm back to stay this time.

Two things happened today that really made me want to get serious about losing this last bit of weight. One was my Weight Watcher meeting where my leader talked about a type of person she sees at her meetings. Usually it's a female, who drops a lot of weight, 50 or more pounds, then looks at her body and says I worked that hard for THIS? She's disappointed in how she looks, wrinkled, sagging skin. Lumps and bumps where she thought she'd have taunt, firm skin. She said usually this person gives up and never makes goal. I felt like she was talking to me.

The second thing that happened was my swimsuit shopping trip. From the waist up, I look okay. Lots of strength training have made my shoulders and arms look acceptable. I'm not ashamed of them, in fact, I'm kind of secretly proud of how they look. I wouldn't tell anyone this, because it's seems boastful, but I actually like my shoulders and arms these days.

From the waist down, I'm not so happy. Especially my thighs. With jeans on they don't look so bad, in fact, they look kind of normal. With a swimsuit it's a entirely different story. I was a little bit upset today as I stood in the dressing room with the glare of the white light and the three-way mirror. All I could think was holy crap, I look like shit.

I know 166 looks better than 240, but considering the hours and hours I've spent at the gym the last two years I expected better results. I'm disappointed, but not defeated.

My plan now is to lose the last twenty or thirty pounds and see how I look then. Maybe it'll make a difference, maybe not, but at least I'll see what my goal weight looks like. The real goal is to be at a healthy weight and I'm not there yet.