Angel Food (lowfat)

I gave up last week. I threw up my hands in dismay. I was exhausted from failing. My weight loss has been stalled out for nearly two years! I’ve been somewhere between 153 and 162 since the fall of 2006 - nowhere near the 210 I was at my highest, but still a few sizes away from my beloved size 8 jeans. (I own one pair of size sixes, but I’m not crazy about them…) Somewhere on Thursday, I stopped my food journaling and decided that exercising was just not happening. I needed to reevaluate. Clearly, my half-hearted attempts at weight loss had become more trying than the times when I worked hard to lose weight.

On Sunday, my weekly Monday morning weigh in looming, I found myself with a choice to make. Do I, for the umpteenth time this year, stop my food diary, stop counting points, and stop working out? Or, do I do what it really takes to lose weight? New marriage looming, I realized that I must choose the second option. I don’t want to become a new wife weighed down by feelings of failure and disappointment. I want to start my new life feeling strong and healthy. I’m marrying a pilot who’s six years my junior, for goodness’ sakes, I need to be able to keep up with him!

After that little epiphany (yes, one can skip church and still be given epiphanies), I immediately set about finding my old WW points logs from 2005. Thank God that I saved them. I wanted to see what I did that made me so successful in weight loss a few years ago. How dedicated was I really? See, I have been telling myself lately that I can count points ever so loosely and still succeed. My journals tell a different story. I was shocked to read how faithful I was at points counting. I seriously stuck to the plan? Oh yes. On weeks that I went over my points allowance, I usually didn’t lose anything or gained a little bit. Another thing I noticed is that I regularly ate all of my recommended fruits and vegetables. I was the fiber queen!

Sitting in my kitchen on Sunday, with all these old WW journals in front of me,  I felt a strange combination of annoyance and relief. Annoyance  - that I’ve not been wanting to admit that someone else’s plan worked so well for me. (I am too gosh darn defiant and independent at times.) Relief - that there was something out there that worked for me. So, today, I am proudly giving up my own stubborn ways and am back on my the WW points plan (22 base, 35 flex a week). I’ve been fibering up and feel much less hungry than if I’d just been subsisting on cheese and crackers (re: last week’s breakfasts).  I’ll check in here again during the week to report on whether or not I’m ready to cannibalize myself from hunger (likely, I’ll be ok). I hope to report my weigh in results regularly on Mondays from now on (nothing like some accountability to start the week). For someone like me who likes to feel so in control, it actually feels kind of good to tell my little points log that it is to be my guide.

Today’s weigh in: 160.6