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!







Thursday, October 20, 2011

200 Getting bored

Day 200 already---two hundred days---20 pounds. (Down 40 from the all time high) Wow that's slow--but as long as I maintain that pace...300 days 30 pounds, 400...40 pounds. Thats quite a lot lost over the course of a year!  I still hope and wish for a faster pace, but I think that's exactly why I've never been able to lose before. The pace--even though the books said it was moderate (a pound a week or whatever) was just too much for me. I couldn't endure the lifestyle--and since I couldn't learn to accept the new lifestyle quickly enough to stay on the diet and lose weight, I never lost more than 10 pounds before I ran screaming back to butter and cheese.  This time is the first time that I've ever realized that I had a CHOICE. I can, in theory, stick to ww perfectly and lose a bunch quickly, or I can do what I'm doing--stick as well as I can with plenty of room for detours. Tomorrow I'm having a J-dawg and an "awful waffle" for lunch and a luau for dinner. Obviously this will slow me down, but for the first time that's OK. I don't want to live a life where I feel like I have to eat 3 oz of pork at a luau and bring my own dressing and skip the famous J-dawg.  I would literally rather be fat. It's exilirating to know that I can make progress and still have what I consider to be a goodly amount of Halloween candy--not what ww thinks is a good amount of candy.

Personal choice is the message I would love to give to everyone who struggles with weight. It's so easy to think that you don't know anything. After all, if I knew something then I wouldn't have the problem right? But that's not true. Only I can possibly know what foods are exciting and satisfying to me. Only I can figure out how to build a lifestyle that works for me.

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