Today is Day 60 of my campaign. It is Day 18 of Cycle 3. And it is a great day!!

Earlier this week, my sister and I were doing Tabata 1 which includes left and right bridge pulses. They should have looked like what you see pictured here; but Chele and I are not nearly as strong or coordinated as Erin Oprea is. Although we still bear a striking resemblance to beetles in distress, we do our best and we are both getting noticeably stronger. As we were grunting our way through the exercise, Chele asked me (with some desperation and frustration, I might add) exactly what muscles we were supposed to be working. “You’re working your thutt muscles,” I said. You know, the thutt muscles – where the thigh meets the butt. The area around my hips, thighs and butt is always a trial for me. When I lose weight, I always lose first in my face, then in my belly, then everywhere except my hips, thighs, and butt. They are always last. They are last to the degree that as I approach my goal weight, I feel like an apple on a stick. That area is just way out of proportion.

This time, though, things are progressing a little differently. I can see a marked difference in my thutt and in the area where my thighs and hips meet – my thip. My thutt and thips make up the area I usually refer to collectively as My Hams. And, honey, when I started this campaign they were like extended family Easter lunch hams – big, ole things! The idea is to end up with something like a picnic ham. I was prepared for the apple on the stick look for the next several months, but it looks like it may not be as bad as it has been before.

I don’t know exactly why that is. It could be my age and my proximity to menopause. I am inclined to think, though, that it has to do with the cardio and strength training I introduced much earlier in the process this time. During the Great Reduction, I didn’t really start exercising until the first 20 pounds or so were gone. And, when I did start exercising, I walked, nothing else. Because I can’t walk those distances this time, I’m riding the bike, doing yoga and floor exercises. I truly believe that the strength training from yoga and the floor exercises is making a huge difference.

Of course, I don’t think I’m losing fat from those areas any faster because, as badly as I might want to, I cannot tell my body where to lose weight. The only way to spot reduce is very expensive and requires a plastic surgeon. No, the fat isn’t leaving faster, but the muscles underneath are toning, which gives the area a smaller appearance. Additionally, the muscle tissue I’m making and toning there burns fat, making my body more efficient at losing weight – total win/win!

So, here I am on Day 60 with the Morse code dits and dots of my body – my thips and thutts – decreasing at a really satisfactory rate. I’m down at least 23.6 pounds of fat in these first 60 days. My estimated date of campaign completion has gone from December 24 to November 29 (although that will continue to fluctuate) and I just could not be happier about it all.

It’s not easy, but it’s working, y’all!!

Yesterday, I successfully completed my second 21-day cycle and I feel SO good about it! Like a kindergartner’s finger-painting, my chart is on my refrigerator with all the boxes checked. 🙂

During the Great Reduction, I rewarded myself for every five pounds lost. Each five pounds got me a movie rental. Each ten pounds got me a trip to the theater and each 20 pounds got me a pretty accessory like a scarf or pair of earrings. This time, I’ve decided to reward myself based on my 21-day cycles rather than the pounds. If I stay true to the cycles, the weight loss will come; but, it’s the consistency I’m focusing on now.

In Cycle 1, I had to: 1. take my medicine daily, 2. make my bed daily, and 3. ride the stationary bike for 30 minutes daily. In Cycle 2, I had to do all those things and: 1. do my yoga disc (Peggy Cappy’s Yoga For the Rest of Us) on alternating days, 3. drink a gallon of water daily and 3. do Tabatas on alternating days. I had Tabata 1 and Tabata 2, and I alternated between them. In Cycle 3, I will do all of the preceding things and: 1. exercise my lower abs on yoga days, and 2. do a series of planks on Tabata days. Today is Cycle 3, Day 1 (C3D1), so it’s: bed, med, bike, yoga, and lower abs. Yoga days are my biggest time commitment because the disc is an hour long. However, the process is truly relaxing to me; so, I don’t mind giving up an hour of TV to stretch, focus, and balance.

As I began this campaign (and make no mistake, it’s a campaign – one battle after another), I was talking with a friend who has never had a weight problem, much less been obese. I mentioned shaving getting easier and she looked at me with this really puzzled look as if to say, “How can shaving be hard?” Well, when you have a tire around your middle, bending over is hard. For the obese, lots of easy tasks aren’t so easy: shaving legs, tying shoes, putting on pants (not just the zipping and buttoning, but standing to put them on), some aspects of personal hygiene (Amazon sells this to help those who really can’t reach), climbing ladders, picking things up off the floor, getting up off the floor, and myriad other things. Tasks that require bending can be difficult even without a huge spare tire around the middle because visceral fat gets in the way. And since that is one of the first places I lose weight, bending tasks became easier almost immediately.

Last week, my friend Sean commented that it looked like my weight loss had sped up. I wish! But, I believe that the reality is that while I was losing weight initially, it was coming from around my organs; so, it wasn’t noticeable. Once the weight had reduced sufficiently around my heart, lungs, and liver, my body shifted to my face, neck and abdomen. I’m not losing weight any faster, it’s just that now others can see it. While I won’t deny that it’s a rush for others to see the difference and comment on it, that rush paled next to the one I got when I was able to balance well enough to put my pants on while standing. The yoga that I’m doing isn’t particularly strenuous, but it has already made a massive difference in my ability to balance and in how confident I feel on my kitchen step-ladder, in taking things up to the attic, and, yes, in balancing to put my pants on while standing.

I get it. If you’re young and/or in shape (or at least have never been obese), you’re probably thinking, “Hats and horns! You put your pants on all by yourself. Big deal.”  But, let me tell you, it was a big deal. These kinds of little achievements are worth gold to me. The thing is, you don’t gain 80 pounds overnight. It creeps up on you slowly; so, you lose the ability to do things slowly – so slowly, that you don’t notice that you have trouble doing tasks or can’t do them at all until you can’t. Then, one day, you wake up and realize that you can braid the hair on the outside of your ankles because you can’t reach there to shave. But, I’m proud to say that hair on my ankles is no longer braidable! More quickly than I lost the ability to reach them, I have regained it. It’s easier to get up off the floor. I am much more confident in my movements in general.

This campaign isn’t easy. I can’t tell you how many days I wanted to just blow off my bike ride (that’s the hardest activity and is the one most likely to cause a sneer), but I didn’t. There have been a couple of days when I dialed the difficulty down a little, but I still put in the time and worked up a sweat. I’ve made a commitment to myself that isn’t always easy to stick to…                                                                                                                                                                     …but it’s getting easier.