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.