I've been on a weight loss journey for a little over a year, and despite a few slip ups, I've only managed to gain back ten pounds, which isn't great, but compared to when I used to slip, I could gain five pounds a week. These days, I guess I'd have to say I'm comfortably maintaining in the cold winter months, which is a necessary skill I needed to learn anyway.
Recently I relocated from Texas to New Jersey, and I still haven't caved in and bought a health club membership, so running has drastically slowed down as a part of my workout regimen, although I have purchased long thermal underwear for outdoor running. So far, the coldest run I've managed to get through was 18 degrees at the noontime hour.
Around two months ago I hung up my running shoes because of two injuries, about five inches apart on the same leg, and within two weeks of each other. Running had become a great way for me to lose weight, and since I had to stop, the weight crept back on. Once you become in tune with your body, you know right away when you're gaining weight and when you're losing it.
Since I'm new in New Jersey, I wanted to start meeting men I would potentially like to date, so I signed up for a one month subscription to match.com. Having lived in the northeast for most of my life, I was well aware of what the men expected: the perfect NYC body on the anorexic frame. I won't ever stoop to such a level to date a man, so those profiles I passed over.
I met one man who seemed like a nice gentleman, until we started talking about weight and diet (he is approximately 30 pounds overweight). He really advocated the sauna and steam rooms at his local club, and found himself floored when I told him I didn't belong to any health club.
I guess in his book, you can't lose weight without paying membership dues and joining fees. He went into a long diatribe, trying to tell me how to lose weight, when he was only down 30 pounds, and I'd already taken off 75. If the numbers weren't enough to tell the story, the fact there are more hormones in play plus less muscle mass in the female body, making it harder to lose weight, he'd realize I had beaten him hands down. If that didn't do it, the fact I'm only a few pounds from my goal, and he still has to lose around 30, should tell him a thing or two about my understanding of successful dieting.
“How can you work out without a club?” Anyone who's read my articles knows full well you don't need a health club membership, you only need a few basic sized free weights and a couple of varying resistance bands…and perhaps a balance ball if you want to extend your range of motion. Invest in a few good DVD workouts, combined with the equipment, and for the price of maybe $200, you can workout in the privacy of your own home at any hour, and as much as you like without being gawked at by something with a superiority complex.
I ended up telling this man the same thing I've written above - all you really need is drive, and no health club can give that to you. Plus, do you really want to use a piece of equipment after someone's sweated all over it? Of course there are a lot of people who don't wash their hands after using the restroom, so you don't know how well, if at all, the club's staff cleans the machines with some sort of disinfectant spray.
He was mildly impressed I lost my weight without the help of a club, but as the old saying goes, “….the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away”. On one hand I was getting kudos for losing weight and doing it on my own, and then he snuck in a back handed slap into my blind spot.
“Oh, so you did it with gastric bypass, huh?”
“What….?”
“You said you lost around 75 pounds from your worst weight….you did it with gastric bypass, huh?”
This is the kind of statement that makes you want to bitch slap the person into next week, especially after having spent so much time and effort to get healthy. I can't even begin to tell you how annoyed and angry this made me, but in an effort to be fair, a lot of people do lose a lot of weight with gastric bypass. And a lot gain the weight back. My sister is a prime example: she lost approximately 195 pounds, and then gained back at least 70 pounds. I haven't seen her in a long time since we live in different states, but I'm told she's at least 200 pounds now.
