Chasm

So I have continued to struggle with food. Surprise, surprise. Will I ever NOT struggle with food? I have, however, committed to the "close your rings" challenge and have done so every day since my birthday--11 days. So I'm going for a 30 minute walk most days, and I even did a 12-minute cardio YouTube video on a rainy day. That is huge for someone who did almost no physical activity for about a year, during my pregnancy. So even though the scale has gone up slightly over the past couple weeks, I feel better--stronger and tighter in some ways.

It concerns me how high my heart rate goes during these walks. I am quite out of shape. All of this concerns me.

And yet, somehow the concern never translates to good food choices. There is a chasm in my brain on one side of which are my desires, visions, and concerns and on the other side of which are good, lasting changes. In the middle is the food, and I always fall into it. I have not bridged the chasm.

When I hold my baby and look at both sons, I am terrified of being unhealthy. I want to be the best me I can for them. I want to be here with them for as long as I can.

Yet when I stand in front of that chasm of food that includes candy and pizza and any and all restaurant food. I forget it. I fall into the chasm, 99% of the time.

I've ordered two books about changing your thinking on eating and food. They are based on cognitive therapy and I am very hopeful to get them, that they will actually make a difference in my food choices. I need to retrain my brain. 

Today I am 37

I am determined to make 37 my healthiest year since 2001. I owe it to my children to be a healthy mom. My devotions:

• I will take the #closeyourrings challenge and close my Apple Watch rings every day.
• I will track all my food.
• I will not eat more than 100 "empty calories" (i.e., chips, sweet snacks, bread on the side) per day. Exception: Tostidos for homemade nachos.
• I will record my progress here and on Instagram.

Short-term measurable goals:

• Stay below 1,900 calories from Friday to Friday.
•  No eating out Friday to Friday.
• Close my rings Thursday to Friday.

Longer-term measurable goals:

• Lose 16 pounds (219 lbs) by Saturday, May 27.
• Fit into my wedding rings by Saturday, May 27.

Goals for October

My goals for October are:

• Track everything I eat, even if I'm over points.
• Run 3x a week. 

If I don't track everything from October 5 to 31, I can't get a Starbuck AT ALL for the entire month of November. This includes Thanksgiving and Black Friday, the absolute best days to get a Starbuck.

If I complete these goals, I will get a manicure on November 1.

The Beginning Versus The Middle

My fabulous, supportive Weight Watchers coach said something off-the-cuff last week that I've thought about ever since: "You're at the beginning of your weight loss journey."

This rang both wrong and utterly true to me.

Because this is the second time, and my perspective has been for 4 years that I'm "redoing" something, it doesn't feel like the beginning. It feels like I'm stuck in a swampy, endless middle. It feels like, in fact, that I'm not on a true journey at all.

Even when I was at my goal weight, it didn't feel like the "end" of anything. I stopped going to Weight Watchers before I hit Lifetime, so I never put the period at the end of the first weight loss. I continued to count Points, or at least be aware of points, for 10 years--while I maintained during that time, my weight was still top of mind.

And even before my true beginning as a weight watcher, back in 2001, I felt like I'd slogged through the same swampy middle my entire life. Weight has always been a problem for me, always been something I'm intensely aware of, all the time, every day. So I have never felt free from it, free from some type of weight journey.

And, really, Weight Watchers isn't a journey, not really, because a journey has an ending. And, as all people who have ever struggled with weight and food know, it's never over. The good thing about Weight Watchers is it truly is a lifestyle. I think people scoff at that fru-fru word sometimes, but it is. Some people grow up learning that food is fuel for your body, to eat good, green stuff from the Earth, and to stop when you're full. That is their organic lifestyle, something that is ingrained.

That is not my organic lifestyle. So I need to learn a new one, and Weight Watchers teaches me that.

However, when I heard my coach say I'm at the beginning, it gave me pause. Because what would a beginning feel like versus the swampy middle?

In some ways, I feel like I'm perpetually beginning. Each week, after having fallen off in tracking by the weekend, I start again. This is also not a happy feeling, starting again, over and over. It's like groundhog day. Every Monday morning, there I am, feeling no difference (or a worse difference) in the fit of my clothes, feeling a bit more defeated.

So, what if I looked at where I am right now, big picture, as The Beginning?

At the beginning of something, you have Hope and Drive and Goals and Dreams and Energy and Vision. At the beginning of something anything is possible. I've lost the anything is possible feeling. Because, in The Middle, especially in a middle where no progress has been made despite feeling like you've been perpetually working, it's hard. The Middle is no man's land. You're no longer "starting," it's no longer new, but you're not near the end either. The Middle is the place I have a tendency to fall down.

And I've fallen down. I am stuck in The Middle. In The Middle Mindset.

I choose to get up. I choose to get up and look around the swamp and find the light. The Beginning is now. I am at The Beginning. Of this weight loss journey, I am at The Beginning. It isn't going to be the same as the last one. It isn't. It is different. It is new.

I will forget all the false starts from the past 4 years. I am at The Beginning. So let's begin.

Weight Loss Redux: Why It's Harder the Second Time

I spent the first 21 years of my life being overweight. I was always bigger than my peers, and I had a crippling lack of self-esteem. Before I lost weight, I had never been kissed or on a date at all. I absolutely equated thinness with attractiveness. And I still do, right or wrong.

After I lost weight, I gained an at least outward self-confidence and believe that I was pretty. I remember walking down Nebraska Avenue in Washington, DC, having just gotten a haircut at a trendy salon on Dupont Circle, and a stranger said, "Man, you are beautiful." I was wearing a short, size 6 jean skirt, the sun was shining, I was smiling and I felt beautiful. After 2 decades of feeling ashamed of my self and my body, it was an amazing feeling.

I equate that feeling with being thin.

When, honestly, what likely made me beautiful was my belief that I was beautiful. My self-confidence.

After I lost weight, I fell desperately for the man who would become my husband. Proven hypothesis: Lose weight = get boyfriend/get married/live happily ever after.

Before I lost weight, I wanted so many things. I wanted to be loved by a man. I wanted to be desired.

Now, I am. I am still loved , even though, I am 80 pounds above goal.

I am shocked that my husband still loves me and still finds me attractive.

I'm also grateful.

I feel in some ways that I owe it to him to lose the weight. He deserves the skinny, confident woman he married. He never imposes this feeling on me; this is squarely something I feel from the inside.

I'm overweight. But he still loves me. This is difficult for me to reconcile in my mind.

I think in many ways this is a contributing factor as to why I am having a hard time dropping this weight. I'm happy.

I still have anxiety and worries; but I'm happy. I love my husband and he loves me.

I am not dissatisfied with my life the way I was before I lost weight the first time.

However.

My "Lose List" still holds. Inside, I'm devastated by my weight. This time, really, I need to do it for me. For my son, yes, but really for me. I'm the one who needs to regain self-confidence. I'm the one who agonizes over the clothes in the closet. I'm the one who worries about having sex with the lights on. I'm the one who wants with a visceral desperation to be at my goal weight.

And, the problem is, for someone with lifelong low self-esteem, it's difficult to say, "I'm doing this for me because I deserve it."

In the end, it doesn't matter if my husband finds me attractive. I don't find myself attractive. I'm trying to, boy am I trying to "accept the body I have" and love it, the way all these social media campaigns are saying to do. I'm trying to see myself through my son's eyes, with undying adoration. But it's incredibly difficult for me.

And it's because I lack self-esteem and self-confidence. And, unfortunately, at the end of the day, losing weight will not fully fix this lack.

I don't know why I have no self-esteem. I come from a family that loves me, I had a good childhood, a safe home. I don't know why. This is who I am and who I have always been. Being thin just made it easier to ignore. Now, I feel like I have to get back to my thin self so I can figure out what's underneath.

But, maybe I need to figure that out before I can get back to the thin me.

A Weight Loss, and a Weekend Setback

After a truly fabulous week, I did run into one of my typical pitfalls this weekend. I weighed myself on Saturday morning and had lost 5 pounds, yay! Then, I ate out at a restaurant with family and ended up "only" losing 1.4 pounds at my Weight Watchers meeting on Sunday morning--but that is okay.

Sunday evening, I went to a Pat Benatar concert with my dad and sisters. (Rocking, badass women, FTW!) It was a great time. I was on Points all day, and had even brought a favorite protein bar that might as well be a candy bar for a snack after the concert. I planned the whole time that I would have this snack after the concert.

Then, out came the gourmet cupcakes. And out came the locally made pints of ice cream.

The thing that did it? My dad ate some ice cream. As soon as this happened, a switch went off in my head and I went off the rails--two cupcakes and a whole pint of smores ice cream, gone in 60 seconds (well, 60 minutes, but who's counting?).

This was a purely psychological misstep. Seeing my dad eat the ice cream, something happened on a primal level in my brain.

Dad and Me, 2004

There's a lot of backstory with my dad. I was estranged from him for a long time, and now we're
much closer and I love to hang out with him. My dad and I are very similar. And one thing that we share is a sweet tooth.

I've spent so much time wondering why I react the way I do to food. My dad has told me that he'll be eating dinner and while he's eating, he'll be wondering what he's going to eat next, what's for dessert. He said he doesn't know why he does this. That is me exactly. I will be halfway through lunch and thinking about dinner or snack or anything food-related.

So I do believe this is genetic in many ways. It's also environmental, and my formative environment was all about food, in many ways. As a child, sharing desserts was a huge part of my relationship with my dad. Dinner would end, and out would come the big bag of M&Ms or the Oreos, fork carefully inserted into the cream, dunked in milk, or the amazing malts he would make me and my sisters. Desserts brought us together, when in many ways I felt separated from my dad.

I think this all, in the blur of a millisecond, flew through my mind. Dad is having ice cream, so it is okay for me to have it. I should have it. It's like the old days.

And don't get me wrong, it was good--but it also made me mad at myself because it went counter to everything I'm setting out to accomplish.

I know there are many things I could have done differently: I could have not had the cupcakes, or one cupcake, or dished out the ice cream and not eaten a full pint. I know this, and I can learn from this.

This also is evidence of the "group think" described in the book Mindless Eating--namely, you're likely to eat similar food to what the group you're with is eating.

The thing that's even more frustrating is that Monday when I got home, I munched and munched and then had leftover pizza for dinner. So I feel like this week is going to be all about playing catchup and not letting my mind throw the entire week away because of these situations.

IN THE PAST, I would have let these last three days dictate the rest of the week. NOW, I know that each food choice I make is in my own control and saving 4 days is better than not.

So, back to basics.

Got My Mind Set On You

Today I've been feeling inspiration from George Harrison's "Got My Mind Set On You." I don't know exactly what he's talking about in the song, but it certainly is applicable to my weight loss journey.

The title is self-explanatory--I do have my mind set on weight loss and getting back into fighting shape.

The question we must ask before any journey

It's going to take money, a whole lot of spending money...to do it right

Yes. I need Weight Watchers. I need the meetings, the leader coaching, the eTools with access to the recipes. It's expensive for the full package, it is. But I've tried to go it alone, or with eTools only, and it doesn't work for me. I need a great deal of support and check-ins with others who are feeling and doing the same thing so I don't just look around Wegman's at everyone grabbing food from the hot bar and cupcakes and think, "Oh yes, I'm one of them."

I treat Weight Watchers meetings very much like AA. And now with my coach, it's like I have a sponsor too. With all the research showing that food addiction, and the changes foods make in your brain, is very similar to drug and alcohol addiction, this is appropriate.

I am a Weight Watcher. And Weight Watchers works! If you work the plan.

It's going to take time, a whole lot of precious time., it's going to take patience and time...to do it right

This is a biggie. I think I may have done myself a disservice after my first weight loss, when I reflected back in an essay, that my weight loss was easy. But it was, then. I still look back on that year of 100-pound loss and think, zip, off the weight went and I never looked back. I even spent 8 weeks in England in the middle of that year and maintained during that time.

Maybe it's because I was only 21 and walking around a college campus all day instead of sitting at a desk. Maybe my body lost it more easily.

But truly, it was mental. It was mentally easy. And I'm still not exactly sure why it's mentally hard this time. I have thoughts about it.

It's a high, hard climb

I need to remember that even though it felt easy, it still TOOK A YEAR to lose 100 pounds. A year. Of dedicated, points-tracking work. Of making good choices, like only eating out at Subway and only choosing the healthy subs. A whole year. A year may not have seemed like a long time to that 21-year-old me. But now, when I know a year is what is between me having a son in daycare and a son in kindergarten? A year is eternity, a span of time I wouldn't wish to rush by.

Patience--Right now, I feel an impatience that I didn't the first go round, and that likely is because I've done this already. I scream in my mind as I yo-yo 5 pounds at a high weight I'VE DONE THIS ALREADY!! I get frustrated with myself that I have to do this AGAIN.

But, I do. There's no going around it. There's no tracking points for a week and being back at goal. I know I don't see this as "real weight loss." It's strange, but that's how I feel. I have to accept, this is my body. It isn't water weight or baby weight or fake weight, it is weight. And I need to lose real, actual weight.

So, patience and time. Patience with myself and with the process. And time for it to work and big change to come.

And this time I know it's real, the feeling that I feel

After my constant rejoining and falling off the WW wagon over the past few years, I do feel a difference in my mindset this time. As I was getting out my summer clothes, most of which I knew would be tight at this current weight (and they're the larger sizes), I was like goddammit, I will DO THIS. I'm in it to win it.

I know if I put my mind to it, I know that I really can do it

If ever there was a mantra, it's this. If I put my mind to it, I can do it.

Thanks, George--I needed this.