I got up, peed, weighed myself, and then worked out on the hard elliptical at the firehouse for 25 minutes. I am SO proud of myself for making working out a priority! Working out has always been the thing that went first in the past. I NEVER thought I'd still be making it a priority, 6 weeks in. I think it's because I'm not looking 75 pounds into the future. I'm only looking at the next 10 pounds, and it seems like something I can actually accomplish. Whatever tricks I gotta use to make the weight loss process stick this time, I'm gonna use! The blogging has really helped, and reading all yalls' blogs. Really, really helped!
I worked out this morning because I have a date for a glass of wine tonight with TaxMan! He's significantly older than me, a little shorter, and fat. But I was comfortable and had a good time talking to him when we met three weeks ago, and I wanted to spend more time with him. He's been busy with evening phone calls to asia and friends from out of town. I was beginning to think it was the busy of someone who doesn't really want to see me again, but we emailed yesterday and we have a date!
Let's talk about fat and online dating. Eight years ago when I was 226 pounds, I met someone through eHarmony that wrote to me after we met that he preferred his women slimmer. Ever since then I've had a complex about it. (Maybe I should have "helpfully" told him that I preferred my guys to be more interesting. He lived within 3 blocks of the Library of Congress, but had never been inside. I mean come! on!)
I changed my profile to make it clear that I'm not thin, and presented it like the two ends of the spectrum were "thin" and "interesting". I described myself as "a few extra pounds," had a full body shot up, and had words in my profile like, "I'm more comfortable around people who can carry a good conversation than a perfect body." And then, if someone good looking was interested in me, I couldn't believe it. I was sure that they hadn't looked at all my pics. I was an angry person about how weight is important to so many guys, militant about how unfair it is. But I, I was the one making it an issue.
Yeah - I think my discomfort with myself was/is obvious. A few (more enlightened than me) guys wrote in emails to me that weight wasn't important to them as long as I was comfortable with myself. Which is when I had to admit that I wasn't comfortable with myself. I was looking for someone else to validate me because I wasn't validating myself.
So now that I've dropped a few pounds and am feeling actual muscles growing in my legs and am feeling powerful about taking control of my life, I revisited that profile and took all the references to weight out of it. It feels good to own my weight and make it MY issue, not some unknown online person.
As for what I'm looking for in a guy - it's not about weight. It's about happiness, optimism, a certain confidence and curiosity about the world, and ability to talk about stuff ... politics, science, whatever. And a willingness to try new things. All those seem to be things that TaxMan has.
How would I react if a guy started talking about his weight right off the bat like I've been doing? Probably not well. It'd be clear that they had a problem. Like they wanted to be with me to make themselves feel better, not for the sheer joy of it. Food for thought - and helpful for me to continue working on self-acceptance and self love.
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