Good news. I’ve picked up some new followers thanks to my post on the OU daylight-saving time not-riots of 97-98.
If you’re new to this newsletter, hello! You may be wondering why you have an email titled “Weigh-In Wednesday” in your inbox. Reasonable question.
It’s because this newsletter is where I publish ALL of my writing. That means deep dives into weird Ohio University history, and it also means a weekly post on my weight-loss journey (I’m trying to go from being an Ohio 5 to an Ohio 7 - fingers crossed), and it also means occasional posts that are humor for the sake of humor, and sometimes posts about life that I hope others can relate to.
Some newsletters are very consistent with their topics. They cover one thing and one thing only – like say, salads. Yes, salads. With me, you get a bit more variety than salads, which I have also written about but purely as a personal low point.
My weight-loss journey, which I chronicle with brutal honesty, and which has become a group project of sorts with readers, is something I’ll keep writing about until I can pull off a dressy vest with confidence. The Ohio University pieces are something I will keep doing until I have a book’s worth of material. The humor and life pieces – they’ll always be part of this newsletter.
A thing I think is lacking in this world is community and togetherness. This newsletter is my attempt to be the change I want to see in the world, as I hope it brings people together and gives you all something in common for a short spell each week. Feel free to connect with me or others in the comments.
So, that’s the lay of the land around here.
If you like what I do, please share my work and encourage others to subscribe. Some of the feedback and advice I have received from this community has been truly life-changing, and not just for me, but also for readers who never comment but drop me an occasional email thanking me for giving a platform to a recommendation or a comment made by one of you. Please chime in!
OK, let’s get to this week’s Weigh-In Wednesday.
It is the best of times. It is the worst of times.
It is the best of times because good things are happening, and at some point I’m going to need to buy new clothes. It is the worst of times because I would rather repeatedly bash my temple in with a ball peen hammer than go shopping.
Yes, yes, this IS a nice shirt, but does it come in Tent-Sized?
This weight-loss journey will either end with me wallowing in failure and slow-walking into Lake Erie or with me buying new clothes (let’s hope it’s that). The happy ending version of this has me thinking about clothes, and about fashion, which has me thinking about identity.
Before very publicly attempting to lose this weight, which means truly thinking about all the different aspects of weight and body and self-esteem and how it’s all tied together, I’d never stopped to consider how much of the way I dress and the manner in which I present myself in public is 100 percent a reaction to being overweight – probably because that’s a pretty depressing thought that will take you to some pretty dark places if you let it, and, hey, why go to dark places at all in a world in which General Tso’s Chicken exists in such cheap and easy abundance?
I realize now that I make clothing choices purely to hide what I perceive to be my flaws, essentially saying to the world, “Please do not notice me. I would rather be invisible. I am not a person worth looking at. It’ll be like I’m not even here – a living sort of dead.”
I don’t think it’s healthy to be this way – to want to be invisible.
We shouldn’t be erasing our visible selves just because we’re afraid of what someone else might say or think.
Why hand that kind of power over to people who don’t care about you?
A couple times in my life, I have dared to wear sharp clothing – the type that draws attention to oneself. The reaction from those who love me was always the same – you look great, and you should dress like this more often! But did I take that good advice? No, reader, I did not. I always settled back to earth tone mediocrity, and years would pass before I wore anything that grabbed the eye again. I think these loved ones were trying to push me in the right direction, but I wasn’t ready to hear it, and I wasn’t ready to hear it because I had fooled myself into twisting stubbornness into virtue.
How you trick yourself into embracing the erasure of your visible self is by claiming it as a good thing – in this case, humility. Oh, no, no, no, I do not need people to notice me. Wanting to be noticed is sooooo vain. I am humble. In a world of Instagram, I am but a humble Polaroid. Not even a Polaroid. A sketch. A sketch on the back of a napkin, tucked into a pocket, forgotten. Isn’t THAT what stands out in a world run amok with narcissism?
See. I had turned my unwillingness to change into a perceived strength. Only, I hadn’t. How does fading forever into the background help? It doesn’t. It’s just a self-righteous way of not dealing with being unhealthy.
I am in the midst of doing a 180 on the not wanting to be noticed thing, and not just for fashion reasons. Imma climb up on my soapbox here: Too much of our time is spent focused on people who are confident on the outside and empty shells on the inside. See: Instagram. If you have a shred of self-worth, it’s OK and increasingly necessary to claim some of that spotlight for yourself to model the way for others. See: Substack. The world is a better place when people who live a life of integrity are highly visible. Want the opposite of that? See: Twitter.
Bottom line – if you see me wearing a brocade fabric vest six months from now, YOU WERE WARNED.
Drum roll, please...
Starting weight: 187
Last week: 178
This week: 178
Goal: 170
Feeling: Great, every day, until around 7 PM. Then I hit the wall. It happens right after I eat dinner, which is when I eat most of my calories for the day, and I’m starting to think those two things are connected. I like fasting through breakfast, but maybe I am doing myself a disservice later in the day. It’s something to play around with this week.
Shoutouts:
Jason wrote in response to my post about misbehaving digital scales: I have often run into this problem myself. It’s even more infuriating because I have a fancy scale that records my weight on an iOS app to show my loss over periods of time. A false weigh-in can really mess up my beautiful, beautiful, delightful, downward bar graphs.
Occasionally the scale adds about 2 pounds which is infuriating. What I find myself doing now is stepping on the scale for just a second, getting off the scale, making sure it resets to zero and then stepping on again. It seems to work.
Jason – I know the digital scale dance well. On my old digital scale (which may or may not currently be at the bottom of Lake Erie), I would sometimes stand left foot first, and then go right foot first, and then left foot very, very slowly, and then right foot very, very slowly, then left foot quickly again, as if I could through this ritualistic process surprise the scale into telling the truth.
Laura wrote: You make me laugh....and I count that as exercise.
I haven't thrown away my scale, but after a couple days of the same weight I try to reset the scale. My final total was down .5 pounds this week. Yes, I count every tenth of a pound. It's those little victories that mean a lot.
And I blame my parents for both genetics and packing my lunch.
Laura – I don’t think we knew as much then as we do now about nutrition, but there was a good nine years of my life when I thought — and frankly, needed — fruit roll-ups counted as an actual fruit, and that fact may explain some things about me.
Given that us women have been told for countless of years not to define ourselves by the number on the scale, I am passing on that same statement to men out there striving to be healthy. You can easily gain 2-3 lbs. in one day simply by eating high sodium meals (restaurant, fast foods, bread, processed deli, etc), and It can then take another couple of days to lose that. I weigh myself once every two weeks just to keep things in check. Trying to keep myself at 1,300 mg of sodium per day for my age-group (60) is next to impossible when you consider the average medium bagel has 450-650 mg of sodium. And, here in Canada, rather than tell manufacturing companies to lower the level of sodium in their products, they merely increased the amount people should eat. And, don't be fooled by the Lower Sodium labels because they often increase the sugar to compensate which doesn't help.
I did not gain this week....I'll leave it at that.
You touched on something this week that I recently noticed. My style of clothing changes depending on my weight. I have a closet filled with long sweaters that I have not even touched this winter. They feel - and are - too big and baggy on me. My style is not (and never will be) tight, clingy clothes, but rather, and here I use that word again, normal clothes. Blouses, t-shirts, pants that do not have elastic waists. My goal is to actually be able to tuck in a shirt again.
And knowing my history, I am boxing up those long sweaters and hiding them in a closet somewhere in my house where I hope I will never need them again. But I am not giving them away because it is humiliating to have to buy bigger clothes. Shopping is fun when the size is smaller. :)
Good luck this week. I am hosting a baby shower and hope that I can give away any leftover lasagna and pierogies. Parma....need I say more?