Still stuck on the weight thing

Back in July, I was enrolled into a healthy lifestyle makeover program with the American Heart Association. It's part of the Go Red for Women campaign that culminates in lots of public education and heart-health awareness in February.

I enrolled in this program because I wanted to get healthier and address some of my dietary habits that could cause arterial plaque.

Well, after getting lots of blood work done at the outset, it turns out my numbers were already pretty great. It also turns out I did not lose any height as I initially wrote in my last post, so hooray for that. Even though I was already in a good place cardiovascular-wise, I've been doing everything the Heart Association has asked.

My mid-course blood work was stellar. My total cholesterol is 164, and at 90, my triglycerides are practically nonexistent. I'm not celebrating. Not at all. Going into this thing I naively thought I'd lose weight. I did lose a few pounds in the first three weeks, but since then, I've had no weight loss. In fact, I've gained back two pounds.

You know, my body is a stupid body. It's a stubborn body. It does little of what I ask of it. I mean, I'm glad I'm healthy and my cholesterol is 164 and my blood pressure is 110/60. That's awesome. But, I'm always battling generalized pain, I don't sleep, I'm so uncoordinated I frequently hurt myself when I exercise, and despite my efforts to correct the biggest problem of all, I am significantly obese. I hate my body so much. Clothes look like crap on me, and I'm always, always, always embarrassed by myself.

The thing is, and I can't stress this enough, I couldn't care less what anyone else weighs or looks like. I just can't stand myself, my lumbering obesity, my inability to be, if not skinny, maybe able to wear a single-digit clothing size. Maybe getting to a clothing size where the "X" is the first character on the label and not the second would be a start.

Last week after a workout. I'm second from left, all in black.

On this Heart Association program, my blood work has been outstanding, but working out 3-4 times a week--and these are brutally hard workouts, no exaggeration--while also walking several miles a week, and living on a strict low-carb, low-fat, 1400-calorie a day diet (I stopped eating cheese entirely. The diet is closely monitored weekly by a registered dietitian from the AHA and Quest Labs) has yielded me nothing more than an improvement in what was already really great blood work. Ugh. I've lost a negligible amount of weight, but when you have nearly 100 pounds to lose, a tiny loss is meaningless.

And, I'll tell you, nothing makes me rage harder than people who shrug and say it's a matter of calories in vs. calories out, because I've been logging a 300-500 calorie deficit every damn day for MONTHS and I have NOTHING to show for it.

The AHA keeps asking us to think about what we've learned during the program. The main thing I learned is that it's possible to eat perfectly, exercise hard and regularly, have really incredible blood/blood pressure numbers and still be a bit fat fatty McFat fat. That's what I've learned.