Fall into place

Fall is just the best. It's always been my favorite time of the year. Usually that's because the hot, humid days of summer are over and I can finally be outside and breathe at the same time again. I was wondering if the same would hold true this year or if I had turned into one of those women screeching about being cold as soon as the thermometer dipped below 85 degrees. Well, I do get cold easier now but I still love the chill in the air...as long as I have a sweater. I went for a long walk on Friday and yesterday just to enjoy the cooler weather. When fall hits, I want to be outside all the time.

For so many people, spring is the season of new beginnings but it's always been fall for me. (I find the word autumn a bit pretentious so I go with fall...sorry.) Fall means comfortable weather, new TV seasons (Dexter, Survivor, Sons of Anarchy, Weeds, The Biggest Loser, Glee, Modern Family, The Tudors, Vampire Diaries and...and..and Dancing with the Stars - OH MY!), kids going back to school, FOOTBALL SEASON, etc. All sorts of my favorite things begin in the fall. PLUS...and here's a biggie....HALLOWEEN is on its way! I'm already thinking about costumes. Heh.

Speaking of costumes. Last winter, Erich bought me some boots on ebay. Mid-calf, three-inch-heeled boots. I haven't had boots since grade school due to the whole calf-like-a-rhinoceros thing so I have been really looking forward to wearing them again now that I'm pretty much the same weight as when I was 12. But last winter, I still couldn't get these boots zipped up my calf. So I put them away thinking maybe they'd work this year. Well, they do. I tried them on the other day and Erich's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. LOL! I told the man when he was looking for the boots last winter - NO HEELS. Cindy does not wear heels. We soon found out why. I was a broken ankle waiting to happen. Couldn't stand, couldn't walk. My balance is crap even when I'm not on stilts. But it was great that I could actually wear them, so we snapped a few pictures. The second one is me damn near falling over - third one is me being a badass. Oh yeah. (Click to enlarge):




It was fun to be silly for a minute. I haven't been doing too well emotionally lately and it's showing on the scale. The stress at home and at work has me worn down. My response to stress has always been to eat too much. Intellectually, I know I need to find a way to get around that but it's tough. An ongoing process. I don't keep crap in the house now so that helps. And truly, I don't want to stuff my face anymore. It's just gross to me, post-op. But the occasional unnecessary snack coupled with very little desire to exercise means no weight loss. I also think my body is trying to settle into maintenance, which pisses me off. I mean, evidently I can maintain doing what I'm doing now which is good - it means I won't have to live like a Food Nun - but I still want to lose weight.

I've had a few people (including Erich) offer up the explanation that the last 15 pounds I'm trying to get off could very possibly be excess skin. I could already be at my goal, technically. And I suppose that's true. Lord knows I need a total body lift at this point plus a tummy tuck, boob job and I'm pretty sure I'm one of the few 40-year-olds in the world who needs a facelift. So there's a lot of skin that could come off.

My body is becoming complacent with my routine. So I'm going to give it a little shock and hopefully push the restart button on my weight loss. Fall seems the perfect time. Starting tomorrow and for the next 5 days afterward, I'm going on a sort of 'detox' for gastric bypass patients. It takes you back to the early days right after surgery and re-trains your pouch and, hopefully your brain, what to expect at mealtime. A fellow patient did this plan at about the same point in her journey that I am now and it worked very well for her. I'm going to see what it does for me before I post a link to the plan and recommend it to you all, dear readers. Don't worry, it's not like I'll be slurping cayenne pepper and maple syrup or something (really - that's pretty gross and disturbing). I can eat as much as I like of the things that are on the plan. I will let you all know how it goes.