The Journey Thus Far

I’ve been overweight for as long as I can remember. When I was at an early grade-school age, my best friend and I formed an eating club. We just decided that if clubs were for things you liked to do, and we liked to eat, we might as well form the Eating Club. We were the only two members. When I was in middle school I remember my dad always had to take me to the far away mall (Columbia Mall, as opposed to the much closer Columbiana) because it had a store that had a larger selection of Easter dresses for fat girls. When I was a freshman and sophomore in high school and playing softball regularly, I was a size and shape that I would love to be now, but then I only saw myself as gargantuan in comparison to all of the other teenage stick girls that roamed the halls of our high school.

College is when I put on a bulk of my weight, I guess, but I didn’t really notice then. If I had to put the blame somewhere, it would reside with the junk food stored in my residence hall closet (How in the world did that get there?) and the “all you can eat” cafeteria. (what’s that? I didn’t have to eat just the greasy foods, skip the salad bar and then go back for Ice Dream cones? I wish someone would’ve told me.) When talking with coworkers at my first job after college about who would play me in a movie about my life, I struggled to come up with a name because as I said then, “There just aren’t enough curly-headed fat girls in the movie industry.”

Because of this history, I’ve always seen the extra plumpness as a part of myself. I don’t think it ever occurred to me that I could/should try to lose weight until I was partway through college. I didn’t actually start trying to lose weight until well after I graduated. I don’t have a long history of many diets tried and failed.  I think I’ve only seriously tried to lose weight a handful of times. The first time was when a friend and I went in together to buy the special on the Richard Simmons infomercial. We started in January of 2004 and before I gave up in June I had lost 35 pounds. A vacation got me off track and I eventually gained it all back. The next winter I signed up with Weight Watchers and went to the meetings faithfully for several months. That was when I decided that poor people should never have to be fat too, because you can’t afford the weight loss “cures.” Again, I was successful for about the same length of time, losing about 40 pounds, and then I went on a vacation and gave up. After that attempt, I tried to do the Weight Watchers plan a number of times on my own and even paid to go back to the meetings a few times.  I wasn’t really successful again until January 2008, when I got back on Weight Watchers yet again, this time trying it on my own.  I was derailed that time by a week of birthday celebrations in May.

So when I started yet again on July 31, 2009, I didn’t have high hopes. What I did have was a tip on a free website for tracking calories and fat, Sparkpeople.com, from Monica, and I had Abi.  Abi and I had been talking for awhile about my desire to lose weight and how I thought what I really needed was a personal weight loss coach. Someone who would listen to me when I got crazy cravings and talk me down off of that ledge. Someone who understood the struggle I have with food. Someone who has been there done that.  When Abi offered to be my weight loss coach, I believe I scoffed at her.  She had never been overweight. She had never had a food problem. She would not understand what it was like, so she couldn’t possibly be a weight loss coach. Plus, she lives in Georgia, and I hate to talk on the phone. When I told her all of this, she said she understood, but that she would be there to listen if I changed my mind.

Also, ever since I had turned 29 on May 1, 2009, I felt my 30^th birthday looming. I knew I needed to change, and I wanted to be different by the time I was 30. Then at the end of July 2009, I traveled to Illinois for my grandmother’s 80^th birthday party. The combination of sitting squished into an airplane seat for 2 hours each way, being embarrassed by how much larger I had gotten since the last time I saw many of these distant relatives and looking at the pictures from the event got me thinking again about the need to lose weight.  So these things, combined with the looming 30^th (10 months away), and the support of my friend Abi, pushed me to sign up for Sparkpeople the weekend after I got home from Illinois.

It was slow going at first. I went on vacation to Memphis my second week of the diet. I was “good” for a day or so and then got way off track for the rest of the week.  But Abi called me faithfully, encouraging me to keep at it, and Sparkpeople made weight loss almost fun by allowing you to collect Sparkpoints for completing various tasks (exercising, drinking the recommended amount of water, reading articles, doing various motivational exercises, etc.) and allowing your Sparkpoints to add up to virtual trophies quickly. I was somehow able to get my head back in the game and continue on this weight loss journey.

At Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2009 I was relentless. I worried and planned about how I would survive the eat-fests for weeks in advance.  When the holidays came, though, all the forethought paid off. Even though it was the holidays, I forced my dad to take me to his gym daily while I was there visiting. I ate a normal Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner but got back to my regular routine quickly. When I got back from spending a week at my parents’ house for Christmas, I had even managed to lose one pound.

By the time I made it to 30 on May 1, 2010, I was a different person.  I was exercising 6-7 hours a week, eating with in my calorie range most days, not eating out as much, eating the recommended five servings of fruits and veggies a day and drinking about 12 glasses of water daily.  I had also lost 79 pounds in 10 months. I had been setting regular goals along the way and had been meeting them.

In the months since my 30^th, I have slowed down. In fact for a solid three to four months I haven’t lost anything. I haven’t gained anything either.  At first I was not bothered by this and chalked it up to summer. (Summer always makes me eat crazy. I mean ice cream is practically its own food group for me in the summer, and vacations and weekend trips make it very difficult to stay on track.) Plus, I had lost so much weight so quickly that I felt it was probably a good thing to let my body adjust to its new size.

But now summer’s over, and I want to get back to accomplishing goals.  I may not be able to rip through a steady two pounds a week any more, but I want to see some progress.  I’m trying to get my eating back to normal and out of vacation mode. It’s hard. It seems even harder than when I first started, but that’s probably just because I have a horrible memory. I’m sure it was hard then too. That’s why I wish I had been blogging about this weight loss journey all along. At least I have started now, and I hope that I can become faithful in posting. Some posts will be happy, some posts will be depressing, but I guess that’s the way life and a weight loss journey works. I hope you will find something on this blog interesting or encouraging. Plus, I can almost guarantee no other post will be as long as this one.