Losing weight in spite of myself.

I began this blog in February 2011 as a way to help me not quit trying to lose weight, and to learn a few things. It's been an interesting and powerful experience. It certainly confirms what I've long suspected--that although I am a genuinely happy cheery person in the main, I am NOT a happy cheery dieter. I DETEST losing weight. I resent being overweight in the first place and I am a virtuoso in the art of self-sabotage. And YET--I'm doing it! I'm fighting and kicking and EATING all the way down, but the weight is finally going down. The plan I was following in February was a half-baked one largely based on wishful thinking. I gained a little weight and decided to get real. I knew I couldn't just join weightwatchers or count calories or do any one plan and expect to be successful. I decided if I was going to bother to make the effort to lose weight I was going to throw everything I could think of at the problem. And so I do. My real "Day One" for this blog is April 1, 2011. I joined weight watchers, I joined caloriecount.com (awesome website), I read the blog losingweighteveryday.blogspot.com religiously, I keep this blog faithfully, I joined the health programs sponsored by my insurance, I use the principles from overeater's anonymous, I use my church's 12 step program as well, I subscribe--and use--Healthy Cooking Magazine.



The result of all this? Painfully slow progress (About 20 lbs in 10 months). But it IS progress and like the little engine that could I keep on trying in my rebellious way. I have no intention of quitting. This is by far the longest sustained weight loss effort I've ever made in my life. Successful I think, because for the first in my life I've done this MY way--which I've discovered, involves a lot of pizza and restaraunt food. I'm convinced this is the only way to lose weight. For me it must be MY way. For you it MUST be YOUR way. Not weight watcher's way, not your doctor's way, but YOUR way. Any plan or idea I use is only a tool.

The latest plan to lose weight my way began on Oct 29, 2013. It really is my own crazy plan. As you'll see if you read that post. I've implemented the best ideas of all sorts of eating plans and thrown out the scale. A couple of months in and I'm definitely healthier. I'm actually enjoying myself. I won't weigh until April 1, 2014, so I'll see then if this works the way I hope it will.

There is no magic weight loss bullet. But there IS a great deal of magic in the discovery of what I can happily live with (very different from what weight watchers tells me I can happily live with) and still have the body and health I want.

Good luck to all of us on this journey. It's quite a trip!







Tuesday, July 26, 2011

116 feeling slim and sorry for myself

Weight-wise I feel great.  The mind is a funny thing--i did NOT get on the scale today--I didn't want to ruin my beautiful 192 by having retained water or anything, and as I got dressed today I felt longer and sleeker.  It's a great feeling. Other feelings are not so great---techincally nothing to do with food, but part of the emotional climate.  Mom starts chemo today.  Worried about her and hoping against hope that she'll tolerate it well. I wish I could confine my worries to this though. I can't help but think how refreshing this problem with cancer is.  It's nobody's fault, it's relatively easy to know what to do (go through the treatment).  Unlike my father and sister who choose to live in their own personally created sewer and raise my poor nephew in that environment. What to do or think there I have no idea. That is the problem that weighs on my mind and makes Mom's cancer seem like nothing.  And I resent that. I want to be free to have something as horrible as cancer BE the main worry of my life. So I feel guilty that in a very real way I'm not at all worried about Mom (that is that I have faith that whaever happens will be okay), and even more guilty that I'm not doing anything for Dad or Christine or Riley.  So the answer is to do something right?  Right. I can think of a few things and if I did them no doubt more ideas would suggest themselves. I do NOT want to do them.

I have an unhappy feeling that whether or not I do them will have a direct impact on my weight loss success. 

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