Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Law Students Blogs -> Knocked Up (and in Law School)

Law Students

: Knocked Up (and in Law School)

Long-overdue weight loss blogging

It's been awhile, I know. I'm still truckin' along, trying to lose weight. I haven't quite fallen off the wagon, I'm still technically losing weight. But I have been losing momentum. I need to fix that. Also, exercise has been waning. Pilates has been on hiatus while the dance school had their spring performance, so I plan to go back in June. Cora starts baby ballet classes again, so I'll be there anyway. The weather seems to always be raining, but I take Cora for walks when the weather's nice. I need to get to the gym. It's too hot in my apartment to exercise because my damn landlords haven't put my air conditioner window units back in yet. So, gym is on the agenda this week, particularly this weekend. Anyway, Stats:

This week's loss: -0.4 pounds.
Weight loss since starting Weight Watchers: -12.8 pounds.
Weight loss since the bar exam: -18.0 pounds.

As for measurements, I've dropped 3.5 inches in my hips, 1.3 inches in my thighs, 2.5 inches in my waist, 1 inch in my arms, and 1.5 inches in my bust (much to Husband's horror). I am so happy that my bewbs are shrinking, you have no idea. If I could someday be a C cup, I would be so thrilled.

I am now the same weight I was when I started law school. Westlaw, and their constant free pizza**, has been defeated! Only took a year! I gained nearly 20 pounds in law school, that's insane. I can't even blame it on the baby, because I only gained 20 with the baby, and left 15 at the hospital. I initially lost the other 5 pounds, and then gained 10 more. Total fail.

But no more. I have dropped a pants size since then (I'm now a 12), although I'm still wearing my baggy dress pants, because I can't afford a whole new wardrobe when I'm still losing weight. And I tend to wear more dresses and skirts in the summer anyway, so why bother? There are pants and skirts that I now fit into, that I haven't fit into in quite awhile. Unfortunately, the majority of clothes I owned before law school are inappropriate for my job now. My last office was business casual, so I had khakis and skirts. Also, most of the stuff is quite out of style (four years ago), and when I manage to reach my goal weight, well, I haven't been that weight since somewhere around 2000, so I will definitely need a new wardrobe! Gift cards to Goodwill are welcome, dear friends!

The real victory is in controlling how much I eat, and also what I eat. There was a time when, if someone said, hey, there's peanut butter pie upstairs in the fridge, it would have been calling my name, begging me to eat it. Now, I just think it's not worth it. I went out to eat with my mom and Cora on Saturday to a Mexican place, and my meal came with dessert. I had a couple bites of ice cream, and then pushed it away. It wasn't worth it. Doesn't mean I'm doing stellar, I mean, I'd be losing more than half a pound a week if I was. But I'm making better choices. Fries don't have to go with everything. I can go to Arby's and get a sandwich and be satisfied with just that. Was the Arby's sandwich great for me? No, but I can still stay within my Points for the day without the fries. So, it's working. I get more full now with less food, and I don't keep eating just for the sake of eating because it tastes good. That in itself is a victory.

Also very important is that I feel good about myself, because I'm accomplishing something. It was like how I felt after passing the bar exam, because for once, in the past three years, I had worked really hard at something and the hard work finally paid off (as opposed to the rest of my law school experience). Honestly, though, I never really had terrible self-esteem about the way I looked, even being fat. I've had bouts of low self-esteem over it in the past, but then I realized that I'm totally smokin' hawt, what do I have to feel bad about? My hawtness cannot be contained by some excess fatness. Of course, now that there is less fat, there is even more hawtness. Look out, world!

And most important is that I'm no longer technically "obese." Finding yourself 50 pounds overweight after law school really sucks, but it sucks even more realizing you're actually obese. I might not have needed two seats on an airplane, or was even quite to the point where I had to stop shopping at "normal size" stores and shop at plus size stores instead, but still, carrying around 50 extra pounds feels like wearing a fat suit. It doesn't even feel like your real body. It's like being eternally pregnant (but without growing an alien and peeing all the time). I'm feeling a lot better without all the extra weight. Even though I still have at least 27 more pounds to lose, I'm now just "overweight." That's got to be better for me. I never had high blood pressure or high cholesterol, but really, it was probably just a matter of time. I'd hate to become a statistic out here in Appalachia, an area so fat, it attracted Jamie Oliver. Now I'm sure that I won't be, and neither will my kid. Win!

** For those of you incoming 1L's out there, do yourself a favor and avoid the Westlaw Free Pizza "Lunch and Learns" and every other pizza-catered event. Even better, demand that, if they're going to cater to lure you and your classmates into becoming addicted to their online research software, they provide healthy foods instead. Student organizations started getting on board with this, because we were all so tired of the pizza everywhere and the fatness that resulted.

Full post as published by Knocked Up (and in Law School) on May 24, 2010 (boomark / email).