And I can't remember caring for an hour or so

After a night of fretful sleep, I do feel better today in that I stepped on the scale this morning to add insult to injury only to discover that I had lost about ten pounds in the past week or so.  Ten?  I actually weigh less right now than I have since before I had my daughter (about 14 years ago).  Wow.  Of course, I did recently start doing more serious workouts - I joined a strength training class and began pilates.  Apparently, both work significantly.  I can do pushups.  Even in junior high gym, when I was humiliated by being tested publicly on how many pushups and situps I could do in one minute, I couldn't do even one pushup properly.  Last night in my class, I did a series of 60.  That's right; SIXTY pushups.  Me.  Sixty.  Damn.  If only that wretched, lesbian gym teacher with the colossal ass could see me now.

In any case, though, today is the prospectus meeting and I have not been able to be in touch with anyone about it (e.g., my advisor and director of the project).  I took a long walk last night with Jamison, and even though he knows nothing directly about graduate school and generally avoids advising me under such an awareness, feels I should at least stand up for myself and make it my project.  I agree with this.  Now that I'm calm and basically spent on insults to the person vexing me at the moment, I can see that what needs to happen here is I need to stand my ground.  Unless I hear from someone this morning, I plan to go through with the meeting anyway.  I awoke with a fresh perspective that I am right and I like this project; I will "defend" myself against this woman and if she doesn't like what I have to say then she can choose not to be part of this gig.  One thing I'm good at is taking charge of chaos - I'm in the driver's seat here and my director is firmly by my side; everyone else is just along for the ride as I see it.  If I meet with resistance from the back seat passengers, I'll drop one of them off at the next stop.  The bottom line is that I'm not afraid of her and I know my shit and I brought in citations to prove it to her.  At least if there is conflict and there are two other witnesses present, I will have much more cause to drop her as a reader and get a new one.

I lost ten pounds.  Still in shock over this.  Oh, and two inches around my waist.  My skinny jeans are too big.  Yay.  I wonder what it says about me that this is what makes me feel happy and stable.  I can assure you it's not vanity, but I think it must have something more to do with succeeding at taking care of myself first and foremost.  I hope anyone reading this will take this last part to heart: losing weight is easily one of the hardest things I've ever done, and I'm in a PhD program.  It's constant work and 99% of what anyone on TV (even famous doctors on Oprah) tells you about weight loss may not be the case for you.  Most will say that if you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight at the rate of 3500 calories for every pound, but I do the math (hello? OCD anyone?) religiously, and I have to create a deficit of nearly twice that to lose one pound.  Maybe my metabolism is slower, maybe it's hormonal, or maybe it's because I'm getting older - who knows these things?  I can eat one piece of cake and gain three pounds on a scale.  Most will tell you to do 20 minutes of exercise each day, but unless I'm sweating my ass off with heavy weights and running for miles, nothing at all happens at that rate.  Now I'm babbling.  Can you tell there are papers to be graded?  

Wish me luck.  I have an S on my chest today; I'm bulletproof.  Pray the bitch doesn't have kryptonite in her pocket.