Losing Weight is Hard.

I hate talking about losing weight and exercising, and I think it's because I don't want to admit that I had to lose weight in the first place.  Obviously people that I know in "real" life know that I was (still am) overweight and noticed when it started coming off, but there are people on Facebook that I really didn't want to know.  People I haven't seen since high school, boys I dated in college, friends from elementary school - none of them needed to know that I had gone from average-size to obese over the course of the last 10 years.  It was embarrassing, and I was ashamed of it.  I was never skinny, and I was certainly never athletic - but I was average for my height (which is very short; I am just under 5 feet tall).  All of this means not posting photos of myself on the Internet unless I appear "normal"-size.  Which means I mostly shared pictures of my kids without me in them.

Finally, around Christmas 2011, I was finally convinced that I was overweight and unhappy about it and needed to do something about it.  I'd already decided to go back to school and finish my bachelor's degree (which I did in August 2012), and my true size was revealed in September when I had to make a video for a speech class.  Sure, the camera can add 10 lbs, but can it add 35?  Probably not.  The Friends quote kept running through my mind as I watched it, "How many cameras are actually ON you?"  Still, from September to December I convinced myself that I was fine, and I needed to accept my body because it was mine and I had to set a good example for my children by loving it just the way it was.  I went shopping for my birthday in October and purchased size 12 jeans that looked flattering and tops that covered my stomach.  I was ok with it.  Then I started looking at fashion on Pinterest and Polyvore and realized that, while I could purchase cute jeans and dresses in my current size, I wasn't going to look the way I felt I looked in my mind.  I wasn't going to feel comfortable in shorts, ever.  I would look like a 4'11, size 12 girl no matter what I wore - and I love clothes, and I wanted to enjoy shopping for them again.  I didn't want to buy clothes that covered up my body, I wanted to buy clothes that showed it off. 

The biggest problem with losing weight for me in the past was the mental roadblock.  The mental process had gone like this for me over the last 7 years or so:

-I look fine at this size!  Women don't have to be a size 2 to be attractive. I just need to accept and love my body for what it is.  Besides, I carry my weight well.
-I am still only a size 10.  That's really not that big, it's still a medium!
-Ok, except I'm 4'11.  Size 10 is pretty big when you're this short.  I should really do something about it.
-I joined Weight Watchers!  I lost 5 lbs!
-This is completely unfair.  Why can some people eat whatever they want and be stick-thin?  It's not fair it's not fair it's not fair.  I quit.
-Anger over being fat = eating more food.
-I'm back in school now, I have two young kids and a job outside the house, I don't have time to go to the gym and exercise.  I'll lose weight later.
-A size 12 isn't that big.  It's not even plus-size!

And so on, and so forth.  I think I joined WW three times from 2003-2010 and never stayed on it for more than a month.  It finally boiled down to the fact that I just wasn't ready to make the commitment.

But finally, FINALLY something clicked.  My mom said I encouraged her to join, I say she encouraged me - either way, we decided to do it together this time.  We would encourage each other and keep each other motivated to lose the weight and keep it off for good.  We were going to commit to the plan, once and for all, because we knew it worked. 

So on January 2, 2012, we stepped into a Monday evening meeting.  If you have ever dieted, you know that Monday is the absolute WORST day to weigh-in, because you spent all weekend going out to dinner and drinking and doing whatever else you usually do for fun.  But we had to do it, and we had to start NOW.  There was no waiting until Wednesday, or Friday.  It had to be the first day they were open after the new year.  We could always switch meetings another time.

When I stepped on the scale the first time, I weighed 160.6 lbs, which to date is the most I've ever weighed except while pregnant (and I topped out at 170 both pregnancies, so I wasn't that far off at that point).  I was about 120 when I started dating my husband in mid-2003.  I've pretty much fluctuated between 145 and 155 since 2004 (with an extremely brief period where I got down to 136 - but that was only for like a week).  I was 152 when I got married.  I got back to 145 within 8 weeks of having my son.  I have a notebook in which I've chronicled my attempts to lose weight for 9 years, and kept detailed records of my weight, BMI, and measurements.  Clearly none of my earlier attempts to lose weight AND KEEP IT OFF (this is the important part) worked for me.  On 1-2-12 my daughter was 3 1/2 years old, so I couldn't even blame any of it on pregnancy.  It was just me, eating too much and exercising too little, and ignoring the slowly growing number on my scale.  Seeing that number printed on my book made me commit, right then and there, to making the change and making it permanent.

It was serendipitous that we went to that Monday evening meeting because it was led by the best WW leader ever (and as I've said - I'd joined many times before).  E is a real woman, with real ideas about weight loss.  She's gorgeous and confident but relates to you; she makes everyone feel good about their accomplishments and she's realistic about setting goals.  We liked her immediately, and she's one of the main reasons we've been going back to Monday meetings ever since.

Back to my story.  The basics of Weight Watchers is this - every food has a PP value.  You get a target number of Daily Ps (mine is and always has been 26), plus 49 Weekly Ps that you can eat whenever you want (aka - all in one sitting, spread out through the week, etc) or you could not eat them at all.  For me, not eating them at all was never an option.  I freaking love to eat food, and I wasn't going to sacrifice food (and beer) just to be skinny.  So in my head I set a realistic goal of eating all my Daily points, Weekly Points, and Activity Points (which you earn for exercise).  I didn't do any exercise at first.  I recognized that, in the past, I'd thrown myself into diets full-force, setting up a ridiculous exercises schedule that I couldn't keep up with in addition to restricting my calories. Again - IT DIDN'T WORK.  None of it ever worked when I did it on my own.  So this time, it would be different.  I would focus on the eating for a few weeks and then add in activity.  After a few weeks, I started walking my dog or going to cycle class and doing other reasonable activities for 30-60 minutes a couple times a week.  Never anything crazy.  Never a goal to lose X weight by X date.  No challenges.  Just slow and steady progress.  I avoided all the things that didn't work in the past.

And guess what?  IT DID WORK.  Very, very slowly (my average loss from January - September: 0.8 lbs a week).  First I lost 5 lbs, then 5% of my weight, then 10 lbs, then 10% of my weight, then 20 lbs.  It took a long time, and I didn't have a loss every week.  Sometimes I had a gain.  I had bad days, bad weeks, but I always got right back on track.  I didn't say, "oh, I will start again next week" - I started again at the next meal.  It was slow, but steady, for 8.5 months.  Finally, right before a trip to Las Vegas with my BFF, I hit -26 lbs.  I went from 160.6 to 134.6 and I was THRILLED.  And therein was the problem.  I wasn't at my goal (to be at a healthy BMI, I must weight 124 lbs or less), but I was happy with how I looked.  I'd gone from a size 12 to a size 8 (sometimes a 6).  My face was thinner, I lost 6 inches off my waist and 4 inches off each thigh.  I had made amazing progress, and I was happy with how I looked.  I was confident.  I didn't feel like the overweight friend next to my 5'8 and thin best friend.  I felt normal.  And I loved taking pictures of myself without having to contort my body or hold the camera six feet above my head to look skinnier than I really was.

And then I got stuck. I gained 3 lbs on my trip, which was to be expected, and then I lost it, and gained it.  And lost and gained and lost and gained.  And yet, I wasn't motivated to get back on track and just lose the rest of the damn weight and reach my goal.  I stopped tracking, I stopped exercising.  In December 2012, I got the flu and didn't eat for a week and got down to 132.8.  But I gained it back.  I continued to hover between 135 and 137 for the next 6 months.  Sometimes up to 138, sometimes down to 134, but generally in that 135-137 range.  I dutifully went to meetings every week (well, almost every week).  But I didn't track.  I started trying to run again in January (I had unsuccessfully done the Couch to 5K program before) and for the first time ever, I could run 1 mile, then 2 miles, then, in May, I ran 3 miles.  This was a first for me - even in college, I couldn't run an entire mile without stopping to walk.  I accomplished something major, but the weight stayed, because I wasn't watching what I ate.  For me, eating is 85% of it and exercise 15%.  I knew how to maintain; I knew that I could eat 2 pieces of pizza but not 3, 1 scoop of ice cream but not 2 - but I wasn't losing, because I wasn't going far enough with the eating and the tracking.  I posted on WW forums multiple times in this time period saying I was doing it, I was going to re-commit to the plan.  And I would, for a few days, maybe even a week.  But then I would stop tracking again, and therefore halt the process and gain back the weight.  I would get discouraged by people who lost 30 lbs in three months, or who met their goal (which was much more to lose than mine) within six or eight months of joining.  I felt like my accomplishments weren't really accomplishments at all.

And that brings us to where I am now.  It's June 2013.  My last two official weigh-ins put me at 137.4, which is at the high end of my range.  But on Wednesday, I stepped on the scale at home (which is identical to the official WW meeting scale) and it read 139.  And yesterday morning and again this morning, I stepped on and it said 140.4.

STOP RIGHT THERE.  140.4 isn't just a fluctuation.  It's not even, "meh, shouldn't have had those nachos at happy hour yesterday."  It's a whole different DECADE on the scale (and if you've ever lost more than a few pounds, you know that going down a "decade" is a big deal).  And it wasn't one day, it was two days in a row that I've stepped on and it said that.  That's not nachos, that's me, falling off the wagon.  It starts with a few pounds, but I know how it goes because I've been there before.  "Oh, I'm still ok at this weight."  "Oh, it's only a few pounds, no big deal.  I still fit (squeeze) into these jeans." 

But not this time.  I've worked too hard, I've gone to meetings for too long to stop now.  Since September I've basically been paying a monthly fee to Weight Watchers to maintain my weight.  Fine, I wasn't losing, but I'm not gaining either.  It's worth it.  But now I'm paying to GAIN weight, and that's not acceptable.

I could have easily reached my goal by December, or by now.  36.6 lbs wasn't a lot to lose compared to many of the women in my meeting.  Track what I eat, don't go over my points.  It's not a complicated plan.  But I didn't do it, and something is stopping me.  Why am I scared?  Why is my brain stopping me from losing this weight?  Part of it is being comfortable, and enjoying the compliments I still receive on my weight loss, even though I haven't lost in 9 months.  Part of it is that old voice in my head that is STILL saying, "It isn't fair.  I have to watch what I eat for the rest of my life to maintain a healthy weight, and other people don't."  and, "You look fine the way you are.  You've worked so hard. It's ok to stay where you are because you look normal."

But to be honest - I'm not normal.  According to my BMI, I'm no longer obese, but I am still overweight.  I've always been completely realistic with my goal.  I picked the highest weight in my "healthy" range as my goal, because I know that I will never get down to 100 lbs and maintain it for life.  I'm short, but I'm not petite and I never will be.  But I still need to lose weight to get to that healthy goal.

I know how to lose weight, and I know how to maintain my weight.  I just need to get the mental blocks out of my head.  I need to shut out the world telling me I need to be tiny, and the compliments telling me I look great how I am now, and the negative self-talk (why are your knees so knobby?  You will never wear skinny jeans), and the cravings (ice cream cookies hot dogs beer), and the laziness (sitting on this couch reading is better than the gym.  you are not a gym person).  The plan works if you do it.  But you have to do it right.  You don't have to be completely regimented.  I never owned a food scale, I never deprived myself (except of second helpings). 

I need to dig down and find the part of me that WANTS to lose weight.  Because if you don't want it, like REALLY want it, then you won't lose.  You just can't.

And I don't know how to get that motivation back.  I've been attending meetings all this time, with amazing women and an awesome, encouraging leader.  But it isn't enough to fix it.  It's not enough to move the mental block out of the way and get back on track long enough to actually see a difference.

I don't have a solution right now.  If I did, I would be putting my plan into action instead of blogging.  But I did think that if I wrote about it, if I told my entire weight loss story to-date, maybe I could find that solution.  Something will click in my head again.  Maybe not.  It's worth a try though.  Because I want to lose the weight, I really DO, but I just don't want it ENOUGH to actually follow through with it.

New 5-Minute Face

New 5-Minute Face by racheld15 featuring garnier skincare

Bare Escentuals matte foundation / Garnier skincare / Eye care / Boots Expert beauty product / Maybelline Volum' Express The Rocket Washable Ma... : Target