Cara's Weightloss Journal

First, thank you guys so much for all your encouraging words. Just when I least expect it, you surprise me with a note from your hearts. You make me smile.

You also make me know that weight loss success is possible. I mean, I know it’s possible in the grander sense of things, but on my small platform in the world, it’s been such an elusive goal. But your encouragement lets me know that I can do it.

I was talking to my husband the other day and he said something that got me thinking. I was talking about how I’ve gained back about 40 pounds since I left Weight Watchers last September and how for the last couple of years that I was a member (and mind you, I never missed one meeting in that 4.5 years), I kept fluctuating between 160 and 180, but I never could make it back down to my all time low of 158. I said that I always seemed to make it back to 170 but I couldn’t stay below 170 for very long. Then he said: ‘if you had made that your goal from the beginning (170), I know you would have reached goal and probably lost even more’.

I had to stop and think about that statement for a while. Then I started thinking back.

When I first started Weight Watchers (almost 5 years ago to the day: 5/12/07–I only remember that date because it was my daughter’s 18th birthday), they presented me with a weight chart. It showed the “healthy weight” range according to my height. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, I just punched in my height and it told me my ideal weight was between 124 and 155. So, I set my sites on 155.

Three years later, again, never missing a meeting, I had FINALLY lost 100 lbs. But that only brought me to 165. It wasn’t long before I’d gained 10 pounds back. And then another 10 pounds. It wasn’t straight up hill, there were gains and losses and gains and losses, but the overall arrow on my weight loss chart was pointed in the upward momentum.

Another year later, I was finally able to make it back down to my 100 pounds lost again. I was determined then more than ever that I could actually make it to my ultimate goal of 155. I was on a roll. And I was for a short while, I was able to make all the way down to 158.5. But then I went on vacation and gained 8 pounds. From there, it was all I could do to maintain my weight. And I didn’t. I very slowly, two-tenths of a pound at a time, meandered my weigh back up to 165, then 175, until finally a year later I was up to 183.

That’s when I stopped going to Weight Watchers. It wasn’t that I thought Weight Watchers was doing me wrong or not helping me lose weight. I still to this day think that Weight Watchers is the best weight loss plan out there on the market today.

But getting back to what my husband said. Say I walked into Weight Watchers in May of 2007 and I said, I’d like for my goal to be 170. (I won’t dwell on the fact that they would require a note from my doctor saying that the higher weight was my doctor-approved goal weight.) I would have made goal within 2 years–about 3 years before I actually quit Weight Watchers. And those 3 years were torture. I had to stop and think about how different things would have been if my goal had been 170.

I remember what it felt like to be at 170. I was so comfortable in my skin. I truly felt skinny. Sure, I still had tons of cellulite and flabs flapping from every limb, but overall, I truly felt happy. I felt sexy. I felt attractive. But most importantly I felt happy with my body.

AND, chances are, I would have kept trying to lose more weight once I made my goal. I’m sure, for a period of time, I would have stayed at 170, maybe even for years, but at some point, I’m sure I would have tried to make it down to a lower weight.

But all that aside, what my husband said really made sense to me. So I’m taking a new step in a different direction. My goal is no longer to fit into the numbers on the chart of “healthy weight” or to see a certain number on the scales. Now,  my goal is to lose enough weight until I feel comfortable in my skin again  (and by comfortable, I don’t mean complacent or “just satisfied”, I mean being able to sit with something in my lap and it not toppling over my knees, or being able to sit in a pair of blue jeans for more than an hour without my gut aching from the pinching of the waste band, or to be able to fold my arms on my stomach, not my chest, etc. Those types of comfortable things.). To look in the mirror and be happy with what I see again.

My goal is not a number any more, my goal is…

My goal is my happiness.

I think that’s an achievable goal, don’t you?

That…

…is how much I weigh, now.

I have put it off, and put it off, and put it off, but I think I need to start doing something about that number today or that number will be right back up to 275 in a heartbeat. Actually, going at this rate, I’ll be back up to 275 by Christmas.

And if I did my math right, I’ve gained a total of 35 pounds since my last blog post in September.

I have to say this about that, though, I don’t feel that bad (physically) about the extra poundage. I mean, my cloths are tight and I’m a bit uncomfortable in my jeans, but overall, I don’t feel horrible. I don’t feel as bad as I thought I would.

But I know if I don’t stop “eating whatever I want”, all my hard earned weight loss efforts will be for nothing. It took me 4 years to lose 100 pounds. And I’ve successfully (gulp) gained back 50 of those pounds over the past two years. And I will NOT gain another 50 pounds!

Why does weight loss have to be so horribly hard?!

(That phrase, I think, will be my epitaph.)

Well, I’m not sure where I’m going to go from here. What path I’ll take. What my plan of attack will be. But I just wanted to blog about that number.

And the journey continues…

At Weight Watchers yesterday, my leader challenged us to be good at least ONE weekend day. To track our points and stay on plan. Well, this is something I’ve been trying to do for weeks… months… heck, maybe even years. So I was up for the challenge.

…

Here I sit at the end of my Sunday, a complete failure.

I knew I was going to splurge a little on Saturday. I always do. That one is hard for me to not do. But if I could just figure out how to be good on Sundays! I don’t think it’s genetically possible.

I posted a blog about this a while back and I got a comment back from a very nice gentleman suggesting that I change my perspective on splurges and indulgences. If I could eat the food that I like on a regular basis and still stay on plan, that would be the answer.

I’ve actually been doing that lately and it’s really been helping my weight loss. I’ve lost a total of 3.8 lbs over the past 3 weeks. I’ve been eating primarily low carb/high protein/high fiber foods (Weight Watchers calls these Power Foods). I haven’t been watching the fat content too closely, though, but it seems to be working.

The most important part is that I truly enjoy the food I’m eating on a regular basis. I eat full fat cheese, regular eggs, bacon, real mayo, etc. I just eat less of it and concentrate the majority of my diet on low carbs/high protein, etc.

So why the heck do I splurge on crap foods on the weekends!?

I mean, when I say I’m thoroughly enjoying my diet (not the word diet as in the “d” word, but the word diet as in the type of foods I eat). I can eat foods I haven’t eaten in years and I’m loving it. In fact, I keep small 1″ cubes of full fat sharp cheddar cheese in my fridge to snack on whenever I want. I usually on eat 1 or 2 squares at a time and I only do this once or twice a day, but it’s there for me whenever I want it. And I love it!

This is what makes me mad… Saturday night I had fried chicken and mashed potatoes. I didn’t even want it. I knew what the breading, grease and potatoes would do to my body. I knew I’d feel like crap as soon as I got done eating. And boy did I! I literally thought if I could just puke, I’d feel better. I had so many tums that night it was sad.

Then I woke up this morning and we went to McDonalds for breakfast. Why?! I don’t know. Neither one of us wanted the junk food. And for dinner… Wendys!!

I’m so stinking mad!!!

You know the sad part about it? I don’t even like bread, so I don’t miss it one bit! I don’t really miss potatoes because when I ate them this weekend, they didn’t really taste that good. I kept wishing I was eating a steak and veggies. Or a lettuce wrap roast beef sandwich.

I truly believe the only reason I splurge and indulge like this on the weekend is… well, is… is because I can.

I know I don’t want to.

But I do it because I can.

And now I feel like a complete failure.

I’ll bet I gained those 4 pounds back just over these past 2 days. And look at what I ate! What the heck! I don’t even like Wendy’s!!!

I’m going through so much in my head lately. I’ve really started rethinking a lot of things. Mainly, how I think and feel about “weight loss”.

I’ve been doing a lot of research (which I’ll post about soon) about why our bodies get fat (or rather store fat), how the process happens, what types of foods encourage our body to store fat, and how it makes us feel when we eat certain foods. And I’m looking at food an entirely different way.

I’m even considering going back to school to become a nutritionist. But that’s a WHOLE other post.

I’ve been struggling to lose these last 30/40 pounds for almost 3 years, now (never missing one meeting of Weight Watchers, mind you). You’d think I’d have it all straight in my head by now. But I was talking with a guy at work today (who knows a LOT about nutrition and dieting) and it occurred to me that my weight loss is a whole lot less of a physical reaction than it is an emotional and mental battle.

Now, this isn’t a particularly new concept to me. I mean, I’ve blogged about it before. And I KNOW this weight loss thing is ALL in my head. But when I was talking with him today, and hearing how he has the same feelings about weight loss as I do (which I was surprised because he’s such a health nut and is always working out), I told him about an episode of David Letterman I saw a while ago. Jason Bateman was a guest. When he first walked out, I thought to myself, MAN he looks skinny! And as soon as he sat down, David asked him about it. After a few jokes, Jason made this statement about how he is able to stay so thin: “I have to spend at least 2 hours on the treadmill every day … because I have a 300-pound man screaming to get out of me.”

THAT is exactly how I feel. I truly feel like I have a 300-pound woman trapped inside me fighting me every waking hour to get out. It literally is an internal battle every waking hour of my life (and in my dreams too, actually). And the sad part is… I don’t see any end to the struggle. I mean, even when (IF) I ever reach goal, I truly believe she’ll still be inside of me.

I’m not sure what to do with the thought of that.

That’s a hard thing to face. It almost sounds a little demented–mentally, that is.

Have you guys ever felt this way? How do you deal with it?

I feel like I should start going to therapy or something. I’m just not sure how to battle this fat woman inside of me. She’s got to lose her grip on me at some point, don’t you think?

I mean, I’m going to continue the battle. I’m not going to stop trying to lose weight. And I’m going to figure out the physiology behind what makes me fat and how to combat it, but in the mean time, I guess I just have to take it one step at a time, one bite at a time, and ask her to try and play nicely.

I found this REALLY cool video that explains, in simple words that even I can understand, how fat is processed in the body and shows exactly why we get fat (well, the physical reason we get fat). Let me know what you think.