Sunday morning
It’s cloudy, so I guess I won’t be going to the beach this morning.
Thought I’d check in with myself. Yesterday afternoon I hopped on the scale. I had had only a protein bar and coffee in the morning, and lots of water, as I was going out for a big meal later in the day. I weighed 145 pounds. A new low, and ten pounds from original goal. (I have started to write “original goal” as I can now see that my body will not be in the shape I want it to be at 135 pounds.) Interesting to contemplate being so close, and the nice things people have been saying, and yet still feeling rather disappointed with how my body looks. I still have a lot of work and perhaps re-examining my expectations.
A new wrinkle, literally: it seems my face is becoming rather thin, and I have lines under my eyes which are much more noticeable to me when wearing my contact lenses. Oh, well. It’s a trade-off. Some smile lines under my eyes? Okay, then.
Went to the dinner last night with about 14 strangers. It was a nice time, though I didn’t meet any people with whom I would easily bond. The food was pretty good—a big salad and food bar, from which I chose mostly the healthier items, vegetables and such, but a little scoop of beans and rice, and a little taste of potatoes, etc. It was a Brazilian steakhouse; the gauchos brought the meat around on big skewers, but I only got a small piece of lean pork, a slice of quite rare top sirloin, and two pieces of chicken. The big damage I did was ordering the dessert sampler, but I only finished one item, the little dish of bananas and coconut. Tried everything else. I did learn something about myself: I don’t really enjoy eating out in restaurants as much as some people do. I don’t have that kind of passion for food. (I love to cook, or used to, but I don’t live to sample new restaurants. I couldn’t write a good food review if you paid me.) What I usually enjoy about restaurants is the company (if I’m with a good friend) or the service (especialy if I’m in a favorite place and the waitstaff is chatty.) I’m not sure a “dining out” group is really what I’m looking for in terms of expanding my social horizons. Not that I’m not glad I tried it. It was a step.
Saw two women at Jazzercise yesterday whom I haven’t seen in a while. One is back from being away for part of the summer, and the other had been away because of a heart condition. I had corresponded with the first, and we’ve really bonded—both in terms of some of our interests and our tendencies to be self-critical and overanalytical, but we’re aware that we need to both work on that. We didn’t get to chat much but she brought me a brochure from a place where she gets facials, and I’m going to aim for that for two weekends from now (next weekend I plan on going out of town.) The other has had a heart problem, and though she’s young and thin (her complaint was that working out had brought her from a size 2-4 to a 6, and she said her mother made a remark about how ‘big’ she was getting, yeesh) she has to wear a heart monitor and we’re all now aware to keep an eye on her. How much I learn from other women there, about how they feel about their bodies, about what they see.
Some of my favorite clothes are now just a little too big. Next weekend in Orlando I hope to browse the thrift shops again and see if I have any luck. And I noticed last night after straightening my hair—it’s now a bit too long for me. I do need a shape that’s more flattering and framing to my face. Plus I need the ends trimmed off anyway.
And I think I’ve finally processed the ‘jealousy’ issue out of my system. What I discovered is that I was rather ill-treated last year by someone I’d thought of as a solid friend, and I let my attraction to him make me internalize that as not being “good enough” to draw his attention. That’s really why I got so insanely jealous about this other woman. I hadn’t quite convinced myself that this man’s behavior made him not “good enough” for me—even for a casual relationship.
Since I’m more or less evolving to the point where I want to give my career the motivation and attention that I’ve gradually applied to my body and health, I suppose the last thing I want right now is a serious relationship anyway. I would like to feel attractive to the opposite sex. I do feel I need that validation. But I know I need to continue to work on how I feel about me. And, truthfully, I have a lot of distrust of men, specifically men I don’t know well. I didn’t really realize the extent of that until recently. I have a lot of male platonic friends—straight and gay, married and single—and I’m really comfortable around them. It’s a whole different thing being around men who are not in my ‘tribe,’ with whom I don’t have something strong in common.
Okay, enough self-evaluating. 146 this morning, even after the big meal yesterday. I know it wouldn’t have turned to fat that quickly, but I figured going from empty to full would have been a few more pounds. I guess given the workouts and the lightness of the veggies, I didn’t do so badly, even with a mouthful of flan and some charlotte and such. 
