Oh my gooooooooodness!!

Okay, so tonight is gonna be a big night. Tonight, my band opens for Edguy, one of my favorite metal bands of all time. If all goes well (which it hardly ever does), I'll be arriving at 5 with my roadies to park in the back with the buses. HOPEFULLY it won't rain, which means we'll get to load and unload on time. On time is such a silly thing to hope for, when doing shows. Things hardly ever start on time, due to flaky bands and buses that break down, but we'll see. The show should start at 8, with one of my favorite local metal bands, Eternal Winter. The first time I saw them, they were opening for Sonata Arctica, and I squealed every time their lead vocalist did high notes. I can't wait to see them again!!

Only issue I have with shows nowadays is deciding what I want to wear. Having such an unusual body shape, it's hard to find clothes that fit the right way. I have a short torso, a wide rib cage, wide hips, and a small waist. Oh, and a ginormous butt. As you can see from this photo, it's a little hard for me to find pants that won't completely fall apart. Pants are built for tall people, and even if I buy them in "short" (which I can rarely do...) they have these long torsos that reach my belly button!! It's pretty frustrating, because when they're fit to accommodate my giant thighs and butt, they're also fit for someone with a gut. Which I no longer have. So I've got all this leftover fabric in my waist that goes all the way up to my belly button, or worse, PAST my belly button like an old man. Which means I'll push them down to fit my hips, but now they're all baggy in the crotch and butt area and I'm screwed all over again. I'm talking about a specific pair of LEATHER PANTS here... a pair I got for a steal, which are now way too big, but gaddamn it I wanna wear them at least ONCE!! I have nothing else to wear, really. Since Willy destroyed my fishnet pantyhose (TMI? Anyone?) I can't wear a skirt. And my black bondage pants don't fit at the hips, so I can't wear those either.

Oh, the woes of a metal singer... it's not easy looking good on stage. You can tell, because I hardly every do!! But tonight I hope that I can. I'll be wearing my evil coat, with evil gloves and evil boots. And hopefully, if I wear a classy button down shirt (with the bewbies slightly exposed), I'll be able to pull off the oversized leather pants. We'll see. Either way, I'm so freaking excited about tonight!!

Fun night! With 0 guilt!

Well last night was awesome. I got to meet fellow blogger, Fat Daddy, who was here in my neck of the woods on "business" (hint: he's a secret agent). It was a good time all around, and man, is it ever AWESOME to hang out with someone who understands the struggles of weight loss in a restaurant, because those are the places where I tend to lose control. It's always so easy to, when all of my friends are urging me to "eat real food".

Well it started off by me urging my husband Willy out of his office, and discovering that he has our change jar emptied and spread out on one of the tables in his office. Apparently, him and his office-mate have been using the coins to draw pictures. ANYWAY, I took him to the Metro, and we walked up to the hotel to meet FD. We were a little early, and Willy was cranky because #1 he was in DC (he hates the city passionately), and #2 he had to walk. See, my darling was born with a club foot, and he hates walking. I try to get him to do a LITTLE walking, since no exercise would only make his muscles worse, but it makes him cranky every time.

So there we are, sitting outside of the hotel, and I urged him to play "eye spy". It was hilariously morbid.

Me: I spy with my little eye, something that starts with.... H.
Willy: ...hell.

Luckily, FD showed up quickly and off we went! Willy's mood tends to shift once we meet friends, so as soon as we got talking, his mood immediately lifted. FD was great company, we chilled out and drank a little at a nice Italian place. I had one glass of wine. ONE. It was so small, I'd call it a 2/3rds glass. And I STILL got tipsy. That's when I really started talking (sorry, FD!!) about fellow bloggers, weight loss, and METAL. Eventually Willy got super hungry so we ordered food, and I was so giddy (what a nerd) when I realized that the lettuce on my salad was the same variety that I grow! How chic am I.

FD was a good date. We walked him back to his hotel and said our goodbyes, and then Willy and I walked cheerfully back to the Metro! ..well, maybe not so cheerfully. All of the walking, combined with the low pressure, had Willy in a ton of pain on his foot. Stupid weather. Well, we rode the Metro home and went right to sleep. He felt good about the whole thing, after the fact. It was a nice night out, something that we NEVER do, and we were both glad to meet someone cool that we'd never met, before.

And I was totally good, last night. That's always a plus! I just gotta remember to beware the red wine. Gets to my head EVERY TIME.

I blame you!

That's right, I blame YOU. You meaning me. I blame me for the disaster that happened this weekend, which may or may not have involved me binging. And my husband saying it was alright, because "you haven't had it in a long time!". Bull shite, darling. It doesn't work that way. I haven't spoken of this travesty, which might have happened at the aforementioned party I went to on Sunday. What sucks is that I had done SO WELL, earlier.. but then they broke out the smores and all hell broke loose. Did I mention that chocolate seems to run through my veins?

Anyhow, I didn't gain anything, but it's stalled my loss. Probably from all of the sugar coursing through my bloodstream... and now I'm trying to get off of the stuff. I'm at home, today. Which means that I am in complete control of what does and does not go in my mouth. Man, I wish my husband could hear me say that out loud. Ha!

I'll be going out this evening with the husband, into the perilous and temporarily rainy city of DC. I love my DC, we'll be getting drinks and saying hello to a friend who's in town, and thank GOD this friend is also dieting because it will destroy all temptation. I'd like to go to the gym, today, but I seem to have rendered my shoulders useless after carrying a bunch of newly delivered house plants yesterday. That counts as exercise, right?? Lifting heavy boxes of plants?? Well it had better, because I'm sure as hell sore about it now.

On the bright side, we got in new orchids! I've never seen a lady's slipper orchid, before. They're FREAKY looking. They have HAIR. One of the coolest things about working in a green house is all the neat plants I get to see. This is certainly one of the neatest, and I wish that I didn't live in this stupid studio more and more because damn would that look cool on a table! ..somewhere! In my imaginary house!

Progress

Okay, enough bitching about not being skinny! Today I'd like to give a little congrats where it's due, to someone who will probably never read this blog.

For the past few weeks, I've been giving swimming lessons to my boss' kid. He's the cutest little thing, with blue eyes and curly hair, just like my Willy. Now, when we started, he couldn't float. He was scared to go to the deep end. Now he swims like a fish and we're working on his freestyle form! Hell yeah, it's awesome to see him able to actually swim, and I feel proud of two people; him, and me.

Why am I proud of me, you ask?

Well, not so much for the lessons. The lessons were fun and I like teaching, so that's less a matter of pride. What I'm proud of is the fact that I am able to wear my swimsuit in public. I think it's more a mind thing than a weight thing, too. I still have jiggly cottage-cheese thighs (which I cover partially with a skirted bikini bottom), but, I guess having to be in a swimsuit a few times has boosted my confidence. I don't run screaming from the pool anymore, hurray!

I have a party to go to today, and I'm a little scared. My friends throwing it aren't really weight conscious, and they're gonna have standard party food. You know.. chips, hot dogs, ect.. so I'm bringing a salad. Salad with lettuce I grew myself! Hopefully I won't be laughed at. Or nagged. This usually happens around my friends. That, and the terrible diet advice. Like, "eat a grapefruit every day and you'll lose weight!". Ugh... sometimes I hate parties.

Constant Reminders

Hooo boy... nothing reminds me that I need to lose weight more than a visit to a bar or a club! Had to go down to the place where my band usually plays ( Jaxx, for those of you who don't know ) and pick up the tickets that my band has to sell for our upcoming show with Moonspell. Well, we got there, I spoke to the dude in front, said hello to the folks I knew there, and he told me to wait a few while he asked "the big guy" to get my tickets. So I waited outside with the hubby while people filtered in and out of the club. It wasn't a very busy night, Doro was playing but I guess she's not bringing in crowds these days. And yanno that's sad, because I really like her and her music. I think she's a good representation of a chick who's bad ass, but doesn't have to slut it up for a crowd. Now, I'm facing this crossroads where I'm still working on my stage persona. Some days I think I want my hair straight, and to wear heels and lipstick.. other days I want to wear ripped jeans and big boots.. then sometimes I mix it all up with my steampunk getup.. and I dunno, yanno? Chicks in metal just don't look like me. They're all skinny. Everything they wear looks good!!

I don't have that luxury. I have HUGE hips, a wide ribcage, tiny boobs, and I'm short. S-H-O-R-T. Today I was reminded of how short I was when I saw a chick walk in with a black mini-skirt and cowboy boots, with looooong legs and such a skinny frame that her hip bones were jutting out of her sides. And holy GOD was I jealous of those hip bones. I saw my reflection in the door and saw all 121.9 lbs of myself and wanted to smack myself for those stolen spoon fulls of rice (5 in all) I
had, today. I felt so incompetent. And annoyed that I feel this way! Holy crap, I am not a whale, but compared to all these skinny bitches with their mini skirts and stomach-bearing shirts and the fact that I starve myself just to look the way I do now?? It's unbearable. Here's an example of what I look like, on stage.

I wore this outfit a few months ago, in Baltimore. Not my most dressed-up event, but it was summer-time and it was SUPER hot, so I didn't want to wear my coat or anything else that would bog me down. I look at myself in these pictures and I feel like I'm not good enough, compared to other females in metal. All of them have these personas, where they wear leather (well!) and have big boobs and they're skinny and hot.. and I'm just trying not to look fat. It's just not an even competition to me. All the while, I'm making sure I SOUND good, which really should be the priority. And don't get me wrong, people. It is. The way I sound is more important than any of this vanity, but I can't help but fear for the day when I see a nice blurb online about how my band would be great if their singer wasn't such a fat-ass.

Weekends

I think that one of the biggest hurdles in losing weight is getting through weekends. The weekend is where people hang loose, have fun, and relax. Hard to do that when everyone around you is eating junk food and you're confined to salad. But Saturday is almost over and I can safely say that I've been very good; one slice of sugar free low carb bread, some low carb peanut butter, and a bowl of shrimp I cooked myself. I honestly have no idea what I'm doing for dinner, but it may involve chicken breasts.

I'm getting a little tired of cooking chicken breasts, but that's what you get when you buy a bag of them at Costco.

Memories of fat

Okay, so here's something that I think a lot of people who have lost weight must go through.. do you ever get this alien feeling somewhere on your body? Like something is strange and not right? Like something is maybe missing?

I get this a lot, nowadays. As I've said before, I'm not one of those people who used to be skinny. I have never been skinny. I have grown up fat, with rolls, and pudge, and cellulite. In fact, I can't remember not being ashamed of my body, but I think it started somewhere around the 3rd grade when another girl at the pool told me that I looked pregnant.

Yeah, that was awkward.

Anyway, it feels strange now not to have a gut. Don't get my wrong, my stomach is not flat or anything, and when I sit down I still have very grabbable pudge. But I remember sitting down and seeing them extend against my thighs. I remember being able to grab them and move them around (isn't this hot?) and I remember having three of them. Nowadays, when I stand, I still have a tummy, but, it doesn't extend farther than maybe half an inch. It's a little curve. It's not a freaking beer gut, which I got not from drinking beer, but probably soda. I remember sucking it in AT ALL TIMES. You know what I'm talking about... most of the people who grow up fat have strong abs because we keep them tight ALWAYS. I've noticed that women who grow up skinny and then gain weight later walk around with their bellies out, which makes me scream in my head: "Why doesn't she just suck it in??" I guess it's different for them. If I were to walk around without sucking it in, I'd be close to flat, but not enough for me to do it. In fact, the idea gives me anxiety.

But one of the things that I look forward to the most in losing this weight is the day when I will be able to walk around WITHOUT having to suck it in. When I can finally... relax. To give you a clue as to what I mean, I have not "relaxed" in public since.. um... I guess the 3rd grade. I don't remember what it's like to relax in public. I don't know how it feels to just sit down and not have to worry about an escaping lump of pooge waiting to escape my tireless effort to keep my abs tight, and I have no idea how it feels not to constantly hold it in. And swimsuits!? Don't even think about it. I hate them. I hate myself in them. I go to the ends of the world to escape the eyes of people I know so that when I DO wear one, they won't see me in it. I am so ashamed of my thighs that I wear one of those little skirts on my swimsuit. Do I feel like I'm in my 60's when I do this? Yes. But damned if I am ready for the world to see my horrible cellulite again. And stretch marks. Which I've had since middle school.

My memories of being fat are often combined with my current fat. It sucks to remember that I used to be bigger, and have a mini celebration, while constantly reminding myself that it's not enough and I still have a ways to go. But right now, it kinda feels weird not having the gut which followed me around for years and years and years. Weird, but I like it.

Today's weigh in (according to the WiiFit) has me at 121.9. So... I am getting there. I think.