Somehow I like swimming for pretty much the exact same reasons I’ve avoided swimming. You can’t read when you’re swimming; you can’t watch TV when you’re swimming; when you’re all done doing nothing but swimming, you can’t just stumble home without changing, because you’ve been swimming, and you have to shower and make yourself not smell like diluted Ajax, and that takes a half hour or more, and yet—I love it. All these years of fucking around at three different gyms, and apparently you only had to give me a big box of warmish water to make me behave like a real working-out-kind-of-person. Who the hell knew?
(Well, I guess I did go the park district pool near my old apartment regularly for a couple months in 1999. And then I stopped for some reason, like there maybe was a full moon, or else something on TV, or else someone shouted “Hey! Look over there!” and pointed at something behind me, and when I turned back around my swimming motivation was gone, oops.)
It does not hurt at all that my gym has towel service, and good showers, and a steam room. And a locker room that is carpeted and blandly cushy like a new office building, so that my swimming routine feels like a wet but agreeable second job. Which it is, kind of.
Please don’t mind me while I continue to be amazed that I can actually do things that result—in real live scientific fashion!—in losing weight. I mean, I know that I did this before and wrote a whole damn book about how it felt, but at some point I fell completely out of step. And I became convinced that well, it was just me, that I had this quirky little defect that impaired my ability to fully commit myself and attend WW meetings regularly and click repeatedly on my online POINTS tracker thingy every single day. Sometimes I tried to think of this as a special and endearing defect, like Rudolph’s nose or Dumbo’s ears or Britney’s personal judgment. And sometimes I just scowled and got fat. But I guess I just didn’t like going to those meetings and all that daily clicking clicking clicking, because somehow I’ve found time to do the cooking and salad-spinning and planning and swimming and showering and being an all-around trooper who jumps in the air in slow motion until the frame freezes on her dazzling smile, so there! I am cured! (Except I’m still fat.)
Go mermaid girl, go! I am trying to get over my swimming apprehension. I love being in the water, especially underwater, but I just don’t like people seeing me topless. What if they make fun of my chest hair pattern, which, if you look at it long enough, looks very like an owl’s head, with the nipples being the owl’s eyes?
Owls are very trendy right now. It’s better than having chest hair shaped like Hello Kitty.
i’m finding you very inspiring, wendy. thank you for that. 🙂
Congratulations on finding an exercise that works for you. I have not yet–it all seems like such an effort–like, can’t I just disrobe out of this fat suit that I have been wearing for waaaay too long? I wish it were as easy as dyeing my hair!
I feel like I have gotten my sh*t together enough that I am ready to NOT be fat…finally…but I cannot shed it as quickly as I want. Grrr. Personally I do not like to awim because I am way too vain–I look awful in a swimsuit, I dye my hair, and do not want it discolored, and I wear contacts, so I cannot see AT ALL while in the water, and I do not wear waterproof mascara…put all these things together, and swimming does not even make the list of possible exercise options.
Off topic–am I just really prudish? I cannot imagine going without undies, a la Brit and Paris…I cannot imagine being panty-less in a skirt, jeans, or anything. Please explain if you are one who regularly ‘goes commando.’
Thanks for a fun regular read!!
Just fiximg my link–it was out of date.:)
As I have posted here before, swimming is great. It is the true sport of daydreamers. There’s no reading, no tv, no chatting, not even an Ipod to distract from the thoughts swirling around inside the brain. For those who feel self conscious about the whole bathing suit thing, no one cares…really.
Ginna, yes, THANK YOU. Yes, it’s true, NOBODY CARES. Nobody cares, especially in a gym situation, where 1.) you’re mostly submerged, and 2.) half the other people are there for a low-impact workout and thus aren’t skinny and/or young.
I wouldn’t know what to do about the contact lens situation mentioned above, but I’ve found ways around all the other things. I use Ultra Swim shampoo and I take off my non-waterproof mascara with those pre-moistened facial cloths.
Also, I thought that dry skin would be a problem, but I just use lots of lotion and so far my skin is better off than it usually is this time of year because I’m forced to give it extra attention.
Hi Wendy,
First off, I really loved I’m Not the New Me. It was one of my fave books that I read in 2006. Also at my local half price bookstore (used chain), it was shelved in “psychological disorders,” which I thought might amuse you. I hope it does anyway. 🙂 Please don’t be disturbed. Also I liked the Mackeral Pudding plan a lot too.
I’ve weight watched myself, officially twice now. And the first time around, I spent all this time on the WW message boards, and very early on, someone wrote something that has stuck with me. It’s amazing that I saw it too because they usually remove posts that are critical of the program. It basically said that it seemed like a lot of members of WW focus too much on replacing junk food with slightly healthier version of the same junk food, except loaded with a lot of artificial additives. And that it was tiring to hear people say that couldn’t eat anything today because they had to weigh-in. I’m very guilty of both of these things. It seems CORE is an attempt to address this stuff. I haven’t been able to do it yet, though. WW works for like about two months for me, and then I just jack it in, and feel like I haven’t committed fully enough or something. I do actually really like the local WW leader (though I HATE the sub that comes in when she isn’t there) and wish I could just meet with her individually or something, and spare the meetings with the papers and stamps and all of that.
Anyway, the message boards over at WW rumor changes are coming soon, although I guess minor ones. Don’t know if they’ve been revealed yet because I haven’t gone to a meeting in like a month.
Sorry for rambling. Thanks for continuing to write.
I wear my contacts when I swim and as long my goggles don’t leak, I’m fine.
I actually think that being a year round swimmer has helped me feel comfortable in a swim suit on those rare social swimming occasions. Everyone else is like “Yikes, swim suit season is coming!” and I’m like whatever, I wear a suit all the time. I’ve been thinking about getting a robe to wear from the locker room to the pool because it’s such chilly walk. But a robe might also be a nice thing if you feel uncomfortable walking around in a swim suit.
Yea for swimming!
Kate,
As a lifetime member, I am sooo with you on the substituting fake junk food idea at WW. I’ve been trying “This Thing” of Wendy’s, and it really is better. I can actually EAT. It’s just getting used to picking the right things with an occasional cheating episode. I feel great, not to mention virtuous.
Also, at some point you start thinking about the Flex/POINTS system in terms of what Weight Watchers–the company–gets out of it. Think of all the partnerships they must have with food companies and chain restaurants who pay to have their brand names in the guidebooks and in the eTools database. They make more money off the idea that you can buy “healthier” versions of the same old crap than they do from a program like Core.
I felt the same way about that damned points system. Everytime I calculated my points for the day I thought…am I going to be calculating points for the rest of my life? And then to save on points I’d end up eating many nasty things that I’d never eat in real life (i.e. things with splenda) and I’d have fluffernutters all the time because they were filling and I could make a 6 pt. one. I am DONE with dieting! And I lost weight. I want to recommend timber creek farm – they deliver a big box of organic veggies and fruits to your door so you feel obligated to eat them – and they’re good. take a look at my website above and I wrote a thing about it in Sept. or Oct. – also about packing lunches in my new Japanese bento style lunch box.
I just rejoined WW Online and am having a hard time with it. I refuse to eat food filled with fake shit. Splenda is the Devil’s tool, I think. Anyway, because of my refusal to fill my body with chemicals I get to eat about 3 things a day, and then I’m left starving, contemplating doing Pilates for the billionth time that day just so I can eat an f*ing apple. I need to find a better way….
Hi! I just wanted to ask if anyone’s tried the South Beach style diet, I did it last year and lost about 30 pounds, wonder of wonders! (It also helped that I was working on a horse farm at the time and busting my butt on a daily basis) I’ve managed to keep most of it off, and the SB isn’t that hard to follow.
Wendy, I just finished reading I’m Not The New Me. It was hard to put down, the first night I read til about 2 am and finally had to go to sleep! There were several places where I laughed out loud. Thanks!
I so agree with Kate about the fake food approach among WW online members. I remember one woman writing in this summer saying she had a lot of blueberries, and what could she do with them. Eat them! I thought. But no, people wrote in with suggestions filled with splenda and ff cream cheese and all kinds of crap. Yuck.
I think lots of people in america have no idea of what unprocessed food tastes like, and have little intention of trying it. Bummer.
I love swimming too. It’s as close as we get to flying–moving weightlessly (yes!) over the landscape–or at least over the bottom of the pool. Now if I could only remember that I like it often enough to actually get myself to the pool….
++++I, too, feel swimming changes all of the rules about the body — how it moves and feels. I came to swimming lessons late in life and my accomplishing this skill/avocation/sport has been life changing. To those who are sensitive to their appearance in a swimsuit: a great many people enter the pool without their glasses and can’t see well enough to actually SEE you. And most people reach a swimming zone and they become more harmonious/less judgemental. I notice a lot of people hum in the locker room.
I think it’s like quitting smoking — you have to take a couple of runs at it before it sticks.
If I can pimp my current weight-loss secret, it’s myfooddiary.com. It sets you up to lose 1 pound per week (or 2 if you have a lot to lose), so you decrease your calories gradually as you get to your goal weight. It’s training you to eat the way you’ll need to maintain.
You count actual calories (not points) and you can build your own recipes, using real, found-in-nature foods. Or Splenda, whatever.
Plus you can add in your exercise to get your true calories expended/available for the day. I think they get a lot of WW refugees. Oh, and it’s only $10 per month.
Oh Wendy – I’ve loved you since your first red and yellow website about being on WW and it inspired me to try it and I lost a big ol chunk of ass that I’ve kept off for over 4 years now. I’m still big, but I’m way healthier now and your bullshit-free style of writing was the catalyst.
I love you unconditionally – no matter what you look like or how you act or anything. You’re alive and you’re smart and sassy enough to write interesting things. That’s enough for me.
While we’re bitching about WW, I’ll admit I’ve gotten some great tips and found some cool products from Hungry Girl, but sometimes she gets just a smidge too excited for me with her “Rockin'” this and that. This week she was making “rockin'” zero point soup with packets of Splenda in it.
Mmm. Rockin’.