Body Language

I may have mentioned recently that I've started another diet. This time, it's LA Weight Loss, mostly because it's relatively inexpensive, and the center is 1.5 miles from our house. I don't really NEED to sign up for such a program. I know exactly what I need to do (eat less, eat the right stuff, exercise, drink lots of water). It's just that I don't do it unless the weekly weigh-in by a disinterested third party, and the attendant shame if I don't lose some poundage, is part of the package.

I gained 25 pounds this year. It would be easy to blame it on refectory food, although there's always a salad bar available. It's more reasonable to tie the gain to my lack of self-control around sweets and on my lack of discipline in exercising.

So now it's time to address that.

I'll be starting CPE on Wednesday, and something tells me I need to do some exercising to deal with the stress anyway. I've been walking or using the elliptical several times a week over the past few weeks (since I came back from Colorado). I'm up to an hour's walk up and down the hills of my neighborhood. After CPE starts, I'll do it when I get home. I may try to do some yoga stretches and/or weights early in the morning before I leave.

Insofar as the diet is concerned, I'll just keep plugging away following the food plan. I've lost 6.5 pounds so far - I presume this early loss is water weight, but it's nice to see the scale move regardless of its source.

I'm only moderately body-conscious...most of this is about trying to fit into my clothes so I don't have to buy more...but a funny side note ties my weight woes with my MS.

I take a shot of Copaxone every day for the MS. Great stuff, except I occasionally get injection site reactions. One of these is induration: the meds kill off the fat cells in that area. As a result my upper arms and the fronts of my thighs have dents in them. Sort of like lipo done by a five-year-old. Would that I could manage to get the induration to be evenly distributed over the whole fatty area of my upper arms (what turns into what a friend of mine refers to as the "helens" that flap back and forth when we become old women) and my thighs, which even in my youth were on the large side. So at least one part of me is getting skinnier, after a fashion, while the rest of me struggles to follow suit.

I guess I'm not going to be on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition anytime soon.