About 3 years ago I seriously started my weight loss journey after attending a Discovery Seminar and coming to understand what I now know to be the very beginnings of what my weight is for me. My weight started as a direct result of childhood sexual abuse. It has become so much more over the years. But as you will read, knowing doesn't make it any easier to change it.
I did a Dr. monitored 800 calorie diet and lost 60 lbs rather quickly. It was exciting and even thrilling to have lost so much weight so fast! But 800 calories! Seriously! I don't recommend this method, even if a doctor is monitoring it. It just is not healthy or sustainable. At some point you will have to increase your calories and unless you are doing serious exercise to counter the additional calories (which I was not)you will gain it all back...as I did.
Then I decided to gather a team of close people in my life, who were willing to take a stand with me and support me in this. I had a 1 year commitment with this small group of people. I told them how I hide and even lie when necessary to make excuses for my failures. I lost some weight. I don't remember how much, but at some point in that year I had one too many weeks of gain or no loss, got discouraged and slowly faded away from my team.
Last year I decided that I would try out for the Biggest Loser. Over the last couple years I had learned some things about myself. Serious things that hold me back from losing weight even though to be healthy is what I really want. But hey, I am committed now and maybe doing this on TV in front of the world will make it easier. After all I usually do well in competition. It is a great motivator for me. I didn't make the show, but I put my application video on You Tube then told all my friends about it, who told their friends, and of course any random person who did a search for Biggest Loser on you tube watched that video. In 2 months time, over 1500 people saw that video. I spent much of the last year discouraged that my energy and commitment didn't last or wasn't enough to make significant weight loss happen. And it didn't help that I was getting questioned about it all the time.
I thought that if I were committed enough, dedicated enough, had enough support around, was honest enough, and vulnerable enough that somehow all of that would be enough to motivate me to go to the gym and to eat healthy. But my reality is this. My weight has served me well for 27 years. It has done the job that I set it up to do and now that I don't want that job to be filled anymore I have 27 years of habit and beliefs and fears built up around this. I don't know what thin would look like for me. And I don't know what else will come up along this journey to stop me. What I do know is that this is more than a physical issue, but a heart issue. It has as much to do with my relationship with God as it does my relationship with food. Often I have put food first, trusting it to make me feel safe and comforted instead of trusting God to be that for me.
Where I am at today. I am not making the weight loss a big deal. Yes, I am doing this blog which might seem like a big deal...but in reality, not many people know about this yet. Yes I text/email my new weights each week to about 3-4 people, but not so much for accountability as much as for me to acknowledge what I have or have not done. I try to make good choices each day, but to be honest I don't count every calorie that goes in my body nor do I shame myself for having that cookie. When the urge to eat for some reason other than hunger overwhelms me, and I want to eat a whole box of cookies, I am working at letting a few into that struggle with me. It feels like I am less alone in it that way and it becomes easier to manage.
What IS a big deal is learning to trust God more and more with my heart. Food has been my idol and it rears its ugly head all the time and this time I want God first. This has been much harder than I ever expected. I have yo yo'd the last couple weeks. This would normally be frustrating for me. But I know that the last couple weeks have been really hard to trust God. I know that although most of the time I made good choices about food, I had a really hard time getting to the gym. I also recognize that while I have gotten better about letting people into the food struggle, I have not been so good about letting people in to the exercise struggle. I have many thoughts on that, but that will have to be another blog...this one is already long enough.
There is much to be learned on this journey of trust, healing and health but I refuse to give up. I am a pretty stubborn person and I refuse to give up just because it is hard! But it is much harder than I ever expected.
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I can relate. There's no feeling like it in the world when you have accomplished "body modifaction," to see yourself thinner. And then, no discouragement like when it all comes back. I am glad that you have become your own best psychoanalyst. You have secured a lot of positive reinforces and now you know you need to address the "what's eating you" part. Just remember that it's a lifestyle and it will become easier when drinking spinach and exercising is just part of what you do everyday like getting dressed and putting on your lipstick. I'm sure in some ways healthier living has already become part of your new "normal." I like weight watchers because you get an extra bunch of flex points to fall back on incase you screw up accidentally or incase you want to screw up on purpose.
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