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!







Friday, July 27, 2012

486 Hungry?

Uh Oh. The headachy feeling yesterday isn't entirely gone and Dave is sick. And, just to borrow trouble whereever I can find it, I got to wondering what you do with intuitive eating if you're diabetic? It'd be just my luck to finally get a grip on the food issue, and then go diabetic (it runs in the family). But that kind of thinking is both unhelpful and ungrateful. God has been very good to me, and if diabetes IS in my future, it will only be because I have something to learn that will help me. SO---no more about that.

I don't have time to write much, so I'll just touch on a comment a reader made that I think will be very true in my case. She was saying that much of the program was about waiting. Specifically, waiting to become hungry and waiting for emotions to pass. I can already see that's true. I waited out my emotions yesterday. This morning, I wasn't in the least hungry. I waited until I was and still didn't eat much. I'm still not sure what to do about "taste hunger". We went to Zupas last night and it felt wonderful and satisfying. After my visits, I had some more homemade rocky road ice-cream. I'm not how to handle that intuitively. I can't imagine a time when I wouldn't want homemade ice-cream but yet, if I eat all I want at dinner I will never be actually hungry for it. Even if I were hungry--it would be foolish to try and satisfy real hunger with ice-cream--I'd have to eat gallons of it. Although...there is a big difference between what I was feeling last night, "rocky road ice-cream, SURE!" and a genuine craving for something. The past couple of months I haven't been able to get enough peanut butter cups--but that craving seems to be fading out. Still...this area will be troublesome I'm sure. Right now I'm having a slice of pound cake. Am I hungry? Yes..No...? Maybe? I certainly wasn't craving lemon pound cake until I saw it. But here it is, and here I am...so.....SURE!

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