181 Stuck on low

Another Friday weigh in---still at 187--both thrilling and annoying. Thrilling, because it's the new low--and annoying because I got here last week, had the bleeping STOMACH FLU and am STILL sitting at this weight on the last Friday in Sept. so I will not meet the insurance goal according to the doctor's scales here.  Oh well. The important thing is that I met the goal according to my home scale. I'll see what PEHP has to say, but I'm thinking the next goal for the end of Nov will be an exciting 181.  WOW. 

Yesterday was quite fun in that I just felt so light and comfortable in my body. It's just fun to move in a lighter body. My legs feel longer, and bending over feels different and better. Everyone always talks about how they "feel so much better and more energetic" when they lose weight.  I don't know about energetic, but for me the "feeling better" part is quite literal. I don't catch as many colds when I'm eating right and I like the feeling of every position and movement being more comfortable than the last. It makes me excited for the future.

The future also hold good things food-wise. I plugged my stats into a new kind of online calculator and it estimated that to maintain a goal weight of 155 I would need to eat about 2,100 cal a day. That sounds fairly liveable. Also, I've really got to wonder how rigid a person needs to be? I've been reading a picture book (have I mentioned this?) Around the World in 80 diets and it shows what 80 different kinds of people have eaten on one particular day in their lives. The book goes from 800 cal of a Masai woman to 12,000 cal of the English binge eater. Most people are between 2,000 and 4,000 a day. But here's the thing--their weights don't seem to particuarly correspond to their food intake!!! Sure, some have high intake, but also high energy jobs, but there is a Chinese girl who weighs 106 who lives on KFC chicken. The book does say whether or not the picture shown is representative of their lifestyle and usually it pretty much is. Anyway, the point is that I very much hope that so long as I don't go out of my way to do a long string of stupid things once I hit goal weight ie: eat big meals out 5 times a week, that I too can eat like a normal human being. To me that means that I'm not counting points or calories, but that I have a natural range of intake that might flux up or down according to the day, but that overall keeps me where I need to be.

I don't plan on hitting goal weight and immediatley trying to jump into that kind of a lifestyle. When I gave up diet Coke it took a full three years before caffiene free diet coke gave me the same kind of satisfaction. My food addictions are much more pervasive and severe--I don't know how long it will be before living at 155 will feel as satisfying as living at 220.  Probably more than 3 years, but I have hope that if I persist that someday I'll not only reach goal weight, but live it while eating pretty much anything and everything I feel like eating, because what I feel like will have changed.