Day 24: Go... Bathe in Espresso and be Forever Smooth!

I have received a couple comments that have to do with importance of drinking water while trying to lose weight. One of these comments had to do with the effect of caffeine on body cells while trying to lose weight... so I did some reading and found out something interesting.

Caffeine, it turns out, has a marvelous effect on the fat cells that make cellulite. It lessens the lumpiness, smooths out the bumps, and appears to get rid of some of that icky fat. Here's the catch... according to studies and testing, it is not the internalization of caffeine that brings about these changes. The great changes come from applying the caffeine EXTERNALLY!

It seems that creams which contain caffeine as the main ingredient, "work great to pull fluids out of the spaces between cells and induce lipolysis – fat burning in the layer just below the skin’s surface." This means fat cells will give up their fat particles, thereby shrinking in size.

Neat, huh?!

While the external application of caffeine is beneficial to decreasing fat, the internalization of caffeine has an opposite and negative effect. Drinking caffeine, while it does boost your metabolism a little bit, is also a diuretic which sucks and expels water from your body.

Great! You may be saying. I wanted all that extra water weight to go away! Here's the problem. Your body NEEDS water to burn fat. Without it, kidneys can't work properly so the liver lends a helping hepatocyte. While the liver is tied up helping the kidneys, it can't burn as much fat and because not as much fat is being burned, it gets stored for later.

How much water? It is now recommended that for each 25 pounds you are overweight, you add another eight-ounce glass of water to the daily eight eight-ounces you should be drinking. Another one I've heard is to take your weight in pounds, divide by two and drink that amount in ounces of water (i.e., a 100-pound person would drink 50 ounces of water each day). Personally, I find myself drinking anywhere between 1.5 and 4.5 liters each day.

Won't that mean you'll spend a huge portion of your life in the bathroom? Maybe for the first couple days, until your body realizes there is a constant, sufficient supply of water coming in. After the body releases all the extra water stored between the cells (for emergencies), you'll not only weigh a bit less, but your body will start to do neat things with the water as it repairs and rebuilds throughout your body - in addition to burning more fat. You will not be in the bathroom forever.

Other benefits to drinking sufficient water? How about improved muscle tone? Your muscles will contract with greater ease when you are properly hydrated, allowing a more effective workout. Your skin will plump out, filling wrinkles and flushing impurities, making the skin look younger. Besides, you want nice skin covering those now-plump muscles!

So drink more water and less caffeine... and remember caffeine is in tea, coffee, and cola sodas, even the diet ones. Spread your water drinking out over the course of the day; too much at a time can be harmful, flushing valuable electrolytes and salts from your body. Lastly, drink before you become thirsty. Thirst is a sign you are becoming dehydrated. Oh, and if you don't like water, try adding some lemon or lime or a splash of some other flavoring... it adds just enough to help you get past the whole "drinking water" obstacle.

And with this post, my plans to increase my Starbucks intake have been foiled yet again. Grr... Oh, well... when I am svelte and awesomely toned in body, I shall take my gorgeous self to Starbucks and order a drink of my choice, smallest size mind you, in celebration of the moment.

Week Three: Fat People Are Harder to Kidnap

Taking a sip of her lemonade from a mall kiosk, she glanced at the many people strolling by. So many people... so many attitudes and styles... so many different body types... so many overweight individuals... plain, cotton knits and patterned polyesters alike clinging tightly to every curve, showing every bulge and highlighting each fold of fat.

Puffy arms and dimpled elbows protruding from sleeves too small to contain them. Rotund knees overshadowed by excess heaviness topped by shorts which constantly rode up the legs. Plump no-longer-waist lines overflowing the desperate attempt of pants' waistbands to contain.

How could any self-respecting person display themselves in public when they looked like that?! Didn't they know how sloppy their appearance was? Didn't they care at all?

Well, at least she would never look like that... never in a million years!

And yet, here it is but a few years later and I am coming to grips with that very mindset I once held.

How is it that morbidly obese people can go out in public looking the way they do? I know now. How can one get to such an alarming amount of extra weight? I know now. Do the overweight care how their clothing doesn't fit? I know now they do.

In less than one year, I came to learn just how it is that a self-respecting human being can accumulate so much excess weight, how they can go out in public wearing ill-fitting clothing, and the utter secret shame that accompanies such a state of being.

I am always shocked every time I see my reflection in a mirror. In my mind's eye, I am a little overweight, but not that bad. Clothing is a little tight in some places, but it covers all the undesirable bulges. Anything I can't see behind me is never thought of - i.e., my derriere is not THAT big. Of course, not having a full-length mirror for two years only aids and abets the existence of this mentally-smaller state of being.

About a year ago while in my car, I had turned around to deal with something in the back seat. As I redirected my gaze to the front of the car, I glanced over my still-twisted body. There was a large pile of black cloth tucked next to me and I idly wondered where it had come from. It was then, in a truly surreal moment, that I realized that unknown lump of black cloth was ME!!

My most recent (and most sobering) shock occurred this past Friday. The ever-loving companion of my heart had desired that I purchase some article of clothing in which I would feel beautiful. Later that day, I found myself trying on a handful of tops in front of a - you guessed it - full-length mirror.

As a person who has always had a horror of wearing clothing that showed any undesirable bump, lump, or roll of fat, I was shocked to realize that I was judging the tops, not on the basis of whether they completely masked my various lumps, but on which one looked less tight and thereby, passable.

I had accepted all my unnecessary bulges and rolls as a norm and had given up on the idea that some item of clothing existed which would veil them all (unless I were to take up wearing bedsheets). In that moment, beholding the mass of drooping skin, dimples, and fat rolls reflected so coldly in the mirror before me, I realized I had become one of the generic obese people with ill-fitting clothing I had so often observed and pitied.

I now no longer wonder how people get to this state of excess or how they can live weighing that much or how they can appear in public looking like that... I am living it.

Hopefully, the difference between me and that generic obese person is what I am DOING about the situation. I am not a victim and this state of being CAN and MUST be changed.

Week One: Dedication

It was one of the more beautiful days of October and could not have been more perfect. The sun shone brightly down on the little white chapel and a gentle breeze stirred the leaves resting by the just-opened door.

A mischievous gust caught the veil of the radiant woman and caused it to caress the face of the beaming gentleman beside her. Oblivious to these plays by nature, the two stepped from the church and into the world as husband and wife.

Thus began a whirlwind adventure...

Nine months after that joyous day, an adorable bundle of baby boy was added, amid much celebration, to the couple-now-turned-family. A mere sixteen months later, these three looked down into the tiny face of yet another addition.

One could say they lived happily ever after. Or, perhaps, assume a blissful existence surrounded the growing family. In truth, though much happiness and laughter floated through the house, there was a heaviness which made itself evermore present as time passed...

Okay... That was a nice story... but the heaviness which became present was, in fact, weight gained.

I am that once-slim bride of 798 days ago. For the two months in which the wedding was planned, I worked feverishly to get my weight down to a poundage I would feel comfortable displaying in a sleeveless wedding gown!!! It would do well to interject here that I had never worn anything sleeveless in public, much less with such a low back! The pressure was on to make sure I didn't look as if I had been stuffed into the dress.

My method of losing weight wasn't healthy, but it worked and twenty pounds lighter on the day of my wedding, I weighed less than I had weighed in ten years! Not only that, but I was wearing a size twelve dress... a size I had only ever dreamed of for the past eight to ten years! The elation I felt each time I looked in a mirror or felt the looseness of my old clothing was something I had dreamed of for so long and I looked forward to wearing all the smaller-size clothing I had bought for the honeymoon and future life with my husband.

My anticipation was short-lived as I packed on fifteen pounds the month after our wedding, only to discover at the end of that month that I was expecting our first child! My only explanation for the weight gain that accompanied this pregnancy was the semi-depression/shock state I sank into. I ate everything, loved drinking juices and sodas, and preferred to eat out rather than cook... Add to this scenario the complete lack of any exercise or physical activity - I sat at my desk most of the day, only getting up for necessities or to move to another location where I would resume sitting.

In nine months, I gained 115 pounds!!

After our son was born, I swore that I would lose all this hideous weight; I was so disgusted with how I looked. After two or three weeks, I had lost forty-two pounds, but soon lost my resolve and discovered fountain Pepsi again! I talked much about losing the weight and often vocalized my dread of becoming pregnant again at this enormous weight.

To help accomplish this goal, my wonderful husband gave me the gift of a YMCA membership and we began working out seriously and watching our weight. For three months, I worked out diligently at the gym and attended weight meetings... all without losing a SINGLE pound!!!

Suddenly, I lost twenty pounds within two weeks!!

That was the month our son turned eight months old and the month I discovered that I was once again pregnant. I was very disappointed in myself and in the fact that I had only managed to lose twenty pounds in eight months. It wasn't long before I stopped going to the gym and went back to eating whatever whenever.

Overall, my second pregnancy was better and healthier and my total weight gain was five to fifteen pounds until the last week, when the total weight gain hit twenty pounds above where I had been at the beginning of the pregnancy. Not bad!

It has now been six weeks since the birth of my second son and I have decided that enough is enough. Though I have lost all the birth weight from this second pregnancy, I still have 110 pounds to drop just to reach my wedding weight, which (slim as I had gotten) was still 30 pounds away from my goal weight!

This morning, I completely scared and disgusted myself with the realization that the 60" tape measure with which I was measuring my waist almost didn't make it all the way around!! I have NEVER been this heavy before and truly hate it!

I have a closet full of beautiful clothing I cannot wear and instead have been wearing the same maternity clothes for the past two years. That is depressing! In my mind's eye, I don't realize just how big I am and how much weight I've put on - I always picture myself as being MUCH smaller. A trip past a mirror dispels that illusion quickly each time.

Because I have difficulty in sticking with a project until its finish, I have started this blog in the hope that by sharing my struggles and successes, my failures and victories, my tears and laughter, that I may achieve the weight goal I have sought to accomplish for so many long years of self-loathing and in so doing, encourage my readers to achieve whatever goals have been eluding them.

To give my self-challenge finite boundaries, I have elected to reach my goal weight by 25 July... in time for one of my best friend's wedding where I will be a bridesmaid for the very first time! Nothing like being a bridesmaid to a tiny, petite woman and her tiny, petite friends to inspire my grossly obese 5'8" frame to dwindle away. This is a wonderful motivation!

I have 32 whole weeks (or 224 days) in which to lose 140 pounds... this is an average of 4.375 pounds lost per week or 0.625 pounds per day. If a pound of flesh is accumulated by the consumption of 3,500 calories, then a pound of flesh is evaporated by the expenditure of 3,500 calories... which means a total of 2187.5 calories must be burned every day above and beyond what calories are consumed.

Is it possible?

I honestly don't know, but I have to try.

Weekly posts I will promise and most likely will include mid-week updates on my journey; my project. I will post weekly pictures and weight and inches lost. With camera and pen, I have documented my starting weight as well as the circumferences of no fewer than twelve points upon my body.

At some point, I shall reveal my actual numbers, but I would actually like to have a bit of progress before exposing myself to that painful level of embarrassment.

I hope you will read and that you will find some encouragement along your own path, be it weight related or no. Feel free to point out mistakes or errors I may make along the way... this is, after all, the Ruth Cooper Project.