Hello everyone. : )
I'm here because I'm trying to push myself into being ready for weight loss. I am at the place where I
want to want to lose weight, but I don't feel ready to give up everything that's keeping the weight on. Has anyone else been here?
I have been looking online for people's reasons to lose weight.. the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. What is the tipping point at which one finally decides "I'm done living like this!" and starts counteracting their destructive habits? I know it's different for everyone.
I feel like it's going to take a lot for me to get there. Food is such a crutch for me. And so is inactivity. I don't know how to give those things up and maintain my sanity.
I'm a married mom of two wonderful kids, ages 4 and 2. The healthiest I've been in the past 5 years was during both of my pregnancies. My body slimmed down (except for the obvious region,
), my appetite leveled off, my skin glowed. I was still overweight, but I felt healthy. And after each baby was born, gradually I saw myself putting the pounds back on and then before I knew what was happening, I was unhealthy and back to my old habits once again.
I have PCOS, high HDL cholesterol, gallbladder disease. There are plenty of medical reasons for me to stop eating so poorly and get up and get moving. But until I'm having a painful cyst attack or a gallstone attack, I somehow don't care enough to change. If I have an attack, I care for about 3 days, I shop for healthy food, I throw out all the junk, and then start feeling better and figure I'll just eat this one fast food meal, and I never stop at one.
I also seem to have some kind of amnesia when it comes to what I actually look like. Somehow I've fooled my mirror, and most of the time I think "Hey, I'm not so bad." I'm also a master self-photographer. I know that through the magic of camera angles I can look thin, and then I see a picture someone else has taken of me and the reality of my size slaps me across the face. That's what happened to me today and it's why I'm here. I don't want to be that girl in those pictures. I don't want to look that way. I don't feel that way inside. I feel like the girl I was in high school.
Since puberty, I haven't been thin. When I was healthy, I was in the upper end of the normal weight range for my height. But I'm at least 50lbs overweight now and there's no denying it, especially when I see myself in a photo. I'm humiliated.
6 years ago, before I met my husband, I lost 40-50lbs over about 5 months, and I felt fantastic. I was living with my parents, and it was my mom who helped motivate me to take and keep the weight off. This time, it's just me encouraging me, and I don't know if and how I will be able to do it.
I harbor a lot of resentment over situations in my life where I felt cornered about my weight. My mom had me on diets at age 10, remarked about cellulite on my legs at age 12, has always told me that the world will not respect you if you are fat, always reminded me to suck in my stomach and to not scrunch my chin down because it gave me a double chin. She is a yo-yo dieter herself, and is not a big part of my life now, but she is talking about visiting in the next few weeks, and it has me in a panic about how I look. She has seen me as recently as Christmas, so she knows how big I am, but I really dread it just the same. I'm afraid of her ambushing me and trying to tell me how I need to change.
I resent her pushing me to be thin. I was also in the military years ago, and because I teetered on the edge of the acceptable weight range, I was harassed there, too, yelled at and called names by my superiors, and mandated to lose weight and be subjected to embarrassing weigh-ins and measurements every month.
These things have me questioning my motives to want to lose weight. What is a good reason? What is a reason that's going to bring about lasting change and not just a fling with a smaller waistline before I revert to my comfort zone and pack the pounds back on? I'm afraid of that.
I don't want to lose weight to change the way other people see me, to feel accepted by other people. I know that's not the right reason to change. But right now that's what I care about the most. I am struggling to accept myself. I know accepting myself has nothing to do with how I look. My husband has even said that no matter what size I get down to, if I don't fix what's wrong inside, I will still be unhappy. I don't want that to happen. I want to feel and look better from the inside out.
I just don't know how to get there.
I apologize for the novel of an introduction! I really do look forward to getting to know you ladies and I hope I am in the right place to jump-start my journey toward a healthy, happy me.
Standing at the entrance..
