Angel Food (lowfat)

I really don’t want to record my weigh in amount from yesterday. I decided last night that I’d just email my group of encouragers and beg off the weigh in for the week. This morning, my attitude is different. I am tired of simply “trying to lose weight” and am ready to just do it (with apologies to Nike…). I know that if I don’t report my weight, then I’d be on a slippery slope to gaining again. So, yes, I gained - I was at 157.4 yesterday morning, a .4 gain for the week.

I am giving myself goals this week to kick up my motivation. This “try a little bit” technique for weight loss has  helped me to feel better about myself. However, I’m tired of modest gains. Despite not posting them, I’ve had ultimate goals in my mind all along. I wanted to be 135 by Christmas a month ago, but I don’t think such a quick weight loss is possible right now. I’m finally feeling really motivated and know I need to be more mature and stop making excuses if I want to reach my goals.  

So, my two utterly acheivable goals for the week are:

Goal 1: Weight loss of 1.5 lbs by 10/29 (so 155.9 lb next Monday, can’t weigh in on Sun because I’ll be flying back from a friend’s wedding) 

Goal 2: Cardio workouts 3 x this week 

Ultimate Goal: 143 by New Year’s Day 1/1/08

So, why the newfound motivation? Last week was terrible, mostly because I let my insecurities sabotage my progress. I felt bad about being overweight, afraid that I was a disappointment to my BF or my family. I resorted to old patterns of overeating to feel better. Of course, the old patterns never work - I only felt worse about myself and slightly sick from eating so much. I felt unloved and unlovable. I threw myself several pity parties.

My wonderful BF, blessedly, confronted me about how crazy I was being. He helped me to see that I’m not some sort of a failure. I’ve pretty much been kicking butt for the past few years. I lost a ton of weight, still maintaining a 53 lb loss. I’m dating a wonderful man who loves me deeply. I’ve built up several new friendships and grown closer to my family. I’m finishing my BA, probably with a 4.0 average. I even feel pretty gosh darn attractive. Despite all these achievements, however, lies this truth: even if I still weighed 210 lbs and wasn’t working toward goals, that wouldn’t make me a terrible, unlovable person.

But, there are times when I get nasty and beat myself up over the weight gain that happened last year. I deserve to be happy right now, in my size 10s. Gaining weight hasn’t hurt my relationship, but my attitude about myself has. So, I’ve gained back some weight, and I’m disappointed. When I’m honest with myself, I know why I’ve gained weight back, and it isn’t my thyroid! I’ve been eating too much. They barely know my name at the gym anymore. But, I can’t get caught up in throttling myself because I’ve slipped back into old patterns. Instead, I just have to create new ones. I want to be an active, outdoorsy sort of gal. So, I just need to make time to be active and outdoorsy. I’m tired of my BMI teetering between the normal and overweight level, and I want to wear my cute smaller clothes. So, I need to make sure I eat better, stop making excuses, and work hard to acheive my weight loss goals.

Part of my insecurities stem from my feeling like an imposter. When I was at 135 and could shimmy into a size 6, I felt like a fake. I had an overweight coworker who told me everyday how I had gotten too skinny. It’s as if she was really saying, “you’re the chubby one in the office, you shouldn’t be that small.” I felt like I was playing dress up, knowing that one day I’d have to give the clothes back. But the truth is, the me at 135 was just as authentic as the 157 lb me and the 210 lb me. In fact, the smaller me was probably more genuine because I realized what it took to be healthy, and I was doing it. I wasn’t anorexic; I wasn’t starving myself; and I wasn’t making excuses for staying heavy.

Adding fuel to my new motivated fire, my BF needed to know my weight to take me and a friend flying this weekend. Sensing my embarrassment, he didn’t make me say my weight out loud. He let me plug in the number and figure the calculation. I don’t want to be embarrassed by my weight anymore. I don’t want my weight to get in the way of what I want to do in life.

As it did in the weeks after Shenandoah, my motivation has been building these past few weeks. I have felt it happening, and I’m at the decision point: I can take the motivation and run with it, or I can live my same life. Truly, I’m fine now, but I know that I can be better. I can be healthier. Why wouldn’t I do whatever is possible in order to be healthy? Gains and bad weeks are going to happen, that’s almost certain. But how I handle them can be different. I can be motivated and mature. And, I can move ahead.