185 --The Magic Number Where I'd Stop Being Obese

I was fiddling with the NIH's BMI Calculator. I know I'd done this before--trying to figure out where I stopped being obese, etc, but I'd forgotten.

So, I did it again.

The WHO's classification for obesity is this:

BMI	Classification
< 18.5	underweight
18.5–24.9	normal weight
25.0–29.9	overweight
30.0–34.9	class I obesity
35.0–39.9	class II obesity
≥ 40.0	class III obesity

Well, at my highest, my BMI--as approximated using the NIH calculator-- was 48.3. That means that at 299, I was in a subset of Class III obesity called super obese.

When I started this blog at 289 lbs in 2007, my BMI was 46.6. Still super obese.  Today, I was a scosh over 263, which has my BMI at 42.4. No longer in the worst category, but still in Class III. This is morbidly obese.

To leave Class III, I'd have to get down to 246, at which weight my BMI would be 39.9 and Class II Obesity, and I'd be considered severely obese.  At 216, I'd have a BMI of 24.9 and be in Class I--plain old obese. No scary modifiers.

But 186 lbs is THE magic number: No longer obese at all. Merely categorized as overweight. BMI of 29.9.

The SUPER MAGIC NUMBER: 154. This was my weight on my wedding day. My weight at my first gynecological exam. My weight when I was 23. It was all UPscale from then...  This was normal weight for my height, right on the border.

Which is funny, cause in the back of my mind, I've always wanted to be that poundage again. Not cause of the weight charts.  Not cause I looked slim. That was the upper end of my doctor's weight chart numbers for me, for my height. I clearly felt a bit chubby. I couldn't shop at "normal" stores, cause they didn't have my size. I still was not slender. I even had hubby take pics of me in a bathing suit and hated the sight of my pudge. (I wish I was that pudgy now, dangit.)  BUT...I was "normal weight."

154. Wedding Day Weight. Normal Weight. Youth weight.

Yeah. It's a very significant number.

I don't expect to get there. I'd love to, but I think the caloric sacrifice would be too much to even KEEP me there, if I got there. Big if. I choose to be realistic these days, and I don't know if I could be happy with that sort of caloric restriction. Shoot, just staying under 2000 is hard.

But 185. I can dream that without an immense twinge of disbelief at impossibilities. I can be "just overweight."

After two decades plus of obesity, merely overweight sounds really, really good. I can aim for that. I can dream of that.

It's not a bad dream.

If you want to fiddle with your numbers, HERE.

A Decluttering Trip down Weigh-In Memory Lane

As part of my summer makeover , I want to slim down NOT just body-wise, but also neuroses-wise, spendthrift-wise, and clutter-wise. This afternoon, with my newfound energy, I continued some of the living room decluttering that began Friday. It's really, really bad at my place. We live a huge space, yes, but we fill it. Both hubby and I are packrats, though mine is definitely a more pathological thing. :P  So, at the bottom of one pile, I found calendars from 2007. Yeah. They'd been dumped there January 1 of 2008. Two and a half-years ago.

But it was a nice discovery. The Jan 1 weigh-in for 2007 was 289 lbs. That's 24 more pounds than I am now.

The ending weight for 2007 wasn't logged on 12/31. My last weigh-in logged for that year  was on December 22nd, and it was 274.8. So, in 2007, the year I started this blog in May at a weight of 289.0 (the very same weight in which I began the year), I ended 14+  pounds lighter than I started that year. Blogging helped.

I will add that blogging (no matter how inconsistently or how often I took extended weeks-long breaks) has kept me accountable to some degree. I have not gotten to 289 again. This never happened in my pre-blogging days. I always regained what I lost and then some. I'd lost up to 30+ pounds in the past and started regaining sometimes the very same year.

Blogging has given me some strength to hang on (last year during a more maintenance type of phase), and to lose, so that I'm a tick away from having lost 35 pounds from my highest weight in 2004, and am 25 pounds down from my starting-blog weight. Three years and one month after starting this blog, I have not gotten back up or beyond my high weight.

If you ever thought about starting a blog to help you lose weight, I recommend it. I'm not at goal, not after three years, but I am doing better than I have before, because there's always this little presence in my head: the community of fatfighters whom I follow and who follow me. We are a  support group. And when I drop out of sight cause life gets weird or I get depressed, I still want to come on and lurk and see how you guys are doing, even if I'm not doing so well. And eventually, wanting to hang with you again BRINGS ME BACK.

It's worth it. It is.

Do it.

And the more accountable you are--probably the better it will be for you. Put your numbers out there. Tell us when you fall. Tell us what helped you get back up. Help someone else back up. Put up a body shot. Be honest. Be angry. Be yourself.

So that even when you have a hard time losing, you can just HANG ON until you can lose (and win) again.

Glad I found those calendars. I feel better about today just seeing a bit of yesterday...

Happy Sunday (again)....

My Calorie Guesstimating Is Still Primo...Now, If I could Just Get My Dinnertime Appetite in Line

I started logging my food on SparkPeople today. (My user name there is PrincessDieter, for anyone who is in that community.)

It's a bit of a slow-going pain, but I wanted to see how the calories/fat/protein/carbs added up.

I had written what I ate quickly in my diet journal at home, with a pen,the old-fashioned way, and I had guesstimated that breakfast had been roughly 550 calories.

When I entered the food into the nutrition log at SparkPeople, it told me the calorie count was 535. Good huh?

I remember the very first time I went to a dietitian. Not as a chubbyish kid or zaftigish teen (I was normal on the weight charts, but you could tell by looking at my belly and butt and thighs that I was on the higher side). I went as an overweight 29 year old carrying close to 190 pounds. The dietitian quizzed me on calories in meals, and I nailed every single meal she projected on a screen. The surprised look on her face made me think that didn't happen often, if ever. But hey, I liked to read diet books even then, even if they weren't really sticking.

So, I lost about 20 pounds that time. Regained plus. The usual story.

All that to say that the head knowledge of weight loss isn't correlative to the reality of weight loss, but it's still good to be aware. I can't fool myself when I scarf down pizza or cheese enchilada take-away that I'm eating A reasonable number of calories, cause I know dang well it's more like Z. I've seen caloric underestimation in action (just about everyone I know other than my middle sister underestimates how many calories they have at a meal.)

So, I had a pretty decent, high-fiber, highish protein, veggie/fruit enriched breakfast. I already planned what lunch and my snack will be. The crux always tends to be dinner. That's when my appetite goes nuts. It went a bit nuts last night, when I gave in to seconds/dessert temptation and felt pretty stupid, too.

But, fine. It's another day. I started off well, the middle seems manageable, and if I strategize (drink plenty of fluid, have my whey snack a couple hours prior to dinner, have a fiber supplement, too, to start filling me up) then dinner won't defeat me.

Tomorrow, I plan to return to Pilates after a 4 week absence due to this really hideous, lingering flu. I still have some cough (not much), some plegm (not much), some fatigue (middling). The idea of exercising is daunting, cause I am nowhere near my best energy levels. But I plan to eat lots of fruits and veggies today and get a lots of potassium and rest as much as I can before my session tomorrow. I want to recapture the muscle I lost being ill.

I hope I can continue the logging of food at SparkPeople. I tried this before at WW online and really kind of fizzle away. I always have done better at the pen/paper journal of foods (faster). But I want to see the nutrient breakdown, even if it's just for a few weeks to see where I'm lacking/excessive/etc.

I hope today is a great day for all the fatfighters out there. Write down your calories/points. Eat lots of produce. Drink water. Move some. Do that, you and I, and we're halfway to a good food/fitness Tuesday.

Later,