The Rub

Despite my persistent weight loss efforts, I have not yet lost enough weight to get rid of the Dreadful Rub.  By that I mean the unpleasant sensation of my upper thighs rubbing together.  This rubbing is so persistent and creates so much friction that I have actually rubbed open sores on the insides of my thighs.

The rub isn’t a problem if there is fabric over my legs.  So shorts and pants alleviate the issue, but when I wear a dress or skirt it’s a real problem.  So, even in these dog days of summer, I wear panty hose to work every day.  They make me hot and miserable but provide enough anti-friction to prevent The Rub. 

Why do I even mention The Rub?  Because next week we are going on a family trip to take our daughter to a water park, which means walking around in a bathing suit all day for two days. 

Ouch.

I know from experience that some water parks are incredibly strict about anyone wearing an “extra” garment on the rides, such as a T-shirt.  But do shorts count?  All I would need would be a pair of form-fitting, quick drying shorts to alleviate the problem.

If they’re allowed.

My husband carefully searched the water park website and found no specific prohibition against such shorts. 

Maybe I can wear them?

If I had them.

(And yes, it was very embarrassing having to tell my husband I was concerned about The Rub.)

Alas, I don’t own any form-fitting, moisture-wicking shorts.  I have some form-fitting shorts but they’re cotton or a cotton/poly blend, which will stay soaking wet and probably create different issues should I wear them all day.

So, I will have to shop very soon for a pair of form-fitting, moisture-wicking shorts that will cover The Rub problem area and be allowable at the water park.  Wish me luck.

Insight:  I can tell I’ve entered a whole new realm of fat when my biggest fear of walking around in public in a bathing suit isn’t embarrassment over my appearance but FRICTION!

I did a weigh in today.  My inaccurate scale indicated 171.2 pounds, which is definitely less than before.  Since the scale is inaccurate I really don’t trust it, but I have decided to accept the fact that there is probably a downward trend.  I’ve stayed off the sugar and white flour so there should be improvement!

Patience, Grasshopper!

What a great day yesterday was!  My oldest daughter and my future son-in-law held a party at my house to celebrate their engagement and upcoming nuptials (December of this year).  It was a perfect blend of people, from old to young, friends and family, new friends and people we've known forever.  I got to meet many of my daughter's friends for the first time and liked them all!  What a wonderful group of young people they are.  And the new in-laws were great.  We had guests from age 3 to age 74 and I think everyone had a good time.  And our pool was well-used, which is great.  We don't use it enough.

In the eating front, things are going well but I don't think I've lost any weight yet.  I've remained abstinent from sugar and white flour for about three weeks now.  My plan was to weigh on Fridays.  I forgot to weigh week before last, and when I weighed this past Friday, I was 175, which I think is what I weighed when I stopped the junk food, but then I moved the scale because it seemed tippy and weighed 172.  So, obviously the scale is crummy and inaccurate, as most cheap bathroom scales tend to be.   If I keep this up, God willing, I might know something about my weight in September because my doctor was so concerned about my weight gain that she wanted to see me sooner than usual.

Continuing to exercise.  I did the mountain yesterday with the dogs and it didn't wipe me out, and one of my hard Bar Method DVDs today.  I have a VERY busy week at work ahead and may not manage to exercise much this week, especially since temperatures are way too high to go out walking, but I always tell myself what matters most is my lifetime of exercise benefit, and not any given week.  I'm fortunate that I've never minded exercise and have always seemed to be able to make myself do it.

I managed to avoid the party junk food, which was pretty miraculous for me, and even if I'm not dropping weight, I feel way better not waking up with a belly still achingly full of peanut M & Ms.  Sure, I'm not losing as fast as I'd like, but slow and steady wins the race.

Patience, Grasshopper! 

Brain Plants

Enjoying a humid summer morning after thunderstorms last night.  Drinking coffee, which is making me pour with sweat even though I'm sitting still, just due to the humidity.  I'm cursed with a heavy perspiration gene from BOTH sides of my family, and this is just one of the lovely ways it manifests itself.  (In the summer, I have to have a fan blowing directly on my face on high just to blow dry my hair and apply makeup, otherwise the heavy face and head perspiration renders my efforts futile.  Weird, no one else I know experiences this).  Its a day off work but no one else is up yet so I'm enjoying some internet time--reading my favorite aviation blogs (View from the Tower and Flight Level 390 are my favorites), having fun with the snark and nasty arguments on the AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association) Forums (pilots are OPINIONATED folks, aren't they?) and noting on my weather sites that heavy thunderstorms are forecast for today.  Hope I still get to go swimming! 

I have some succulents that I not very successfully try to take care of and keep alive.  I take no credit for this, but my most exotic succulents right now are absolutely thriving.  Here are some pictures of these weird plants.  They really are strange, to me, they don't even look terrestrial. 

These are my three brain plants.  I call them that because the pattern on top of the lobes looks like the pattern of wrinkles on a brain, but I think they are actually called Lithops.  The reddish one in the center had two lobes but over the past several days it split and FOUR lobes are growing out of the center!  Very strange:

Here is a closer view of the four lobes growing out of two:

It's creepy, looks like something from an alien movie.  You might also note that the gray one at the bottom left of the picture is splitting as well, but as far as I can tell, only two new lobes are growing out of that one.  From my short experience with these very, very strange plants, when new lobes grow, the older ones gradually shrivel and die.  

Here are my two split rocks and my mimicry plant.  I don't have very good luck with split rocks.  (Or mimicry plants for that matter, the shriveled light brown mass on the right side of the pot is another mimicry plant that died).  These here are my third attempt at keeping these split rocks alive.  So far, so good:

My understanding is that these guys will actually flower, but I've never had any that lived long enough to do that.  I also believe that these odd succulents are native to South Africa, which makes me want to visit and see them in their natural environment.  HIghly unlikely that I will ever do that, however.  I'm pretty resigned to the fact that I probably won't ever get to travel abroad. 

In the eating front, still abstaining from sugar and white flour, need to work on portion size.  My body is still adjusting.  I got super hungry yesterday afternoon after a day of literally back-to-back meetings from 10 am to 4pm and while I probably ate a little too much, when I got super hungry, I still avoided the junk food.  It's going to take a while to get this down to where its normal to me, but I'm still mostly encouraged by my progress.

Postscript:  kittens seem to have turned the corner due to regular applications of medicine to their noses and eyes and are much better, frolicing and leaping and acting like normal kittens.  Mom made an executive decision and are now Merida and Fergus, named after characters in the Disney movie Brave, but six year old insists that they are to be pronounced in a strong Scottish accent.  Example: "Here Fairr-ee-gus!"