Starting Over.
You know how they say that if you stop dieting, you’ll immediately gain back all the weight that you lost and then some?
It’s true.
Last Spring, I lost about 15 lbs, on top of 10 lbs I lost the summer before. I was pretty excited. I felt good, I looked pretty good, and I was really happy with the way my photos turned out from my wedding. Unfortunately, as soon as that was over, so was my motivation to keep calorie counting and exercising. Take that and top it with an exile that involved eating out for every single meal for nearly two months, and you’ve got a case of serious calorie consumption. I haven’t gained all the weight back, but I have gained most of it back.
Yes, I feel guilty. Yes, I feel regret for letting all those weeks of hard work go to waste. Yes, I wish I could have looked better at my friend’s own wedding last week. But that’s just not how it worked out.
Although I’m not happy that I have to re-lose the weight I already lost, I’m confident because I have already done it. So there’s that. Silver lining or making lemonade out of lemons or somesuch crap, right? Only this time, I’m not going to think of there being a deadline. I’m not doing this for some event or for the summer bathing suit season or a reunion or anything like that. When I do reach my goal weight, I’m not going to stop. Because that’s how the cycle goes, right? You think you’re done and so you start slacking off. You start giving yourself permission to “cheat” or “go easy.” But that’s not how it works. Even the New York Times says that once you decide to lose weight, you always have to be conscious of what you’re doing. Your body wants to stay at where it is, and it will fight you in changing that. I know my body doesn’t want to lose the weight that it’s gotten used to. That’s why it was so easy to gain all that weight in such a short period of time. Even though many experts say that you can’t lose weight and keep it off, I don’t believe it. I’ve seen it and I know it can be done. But it isn’t easy and I can’t get it into my head that it will someday be over. I can’t think that someday I’ll be able to not think about what I’m eating. I’m sure occasionally I’ll be able to indulge, but these choices have to be thought-out. I have to incorporate things into my life in a healthy way.
I don’t like being overweight. It’s uncomfortable. I don’t feel good. I know that I’m not as healthy as I could be, and I know that I don’t look as good as I could. I’m not doing this for vanity’s sake, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that my appearance wasn’t at least a partial motivation. When I was younger, I never really worried about how I looked as compared to my weight. I never really thought I looked that bad. But now that my weight is creeping up even higher, I really am beginning to see a difference between how I looked then and how I look now. I don’t like the direction I’m heading, and that’s really the only thing that matters to me and it’s really the only thing that should matter to anyone else.
This year is all about Healthy Choices. Healthy choices for me.
Starting weight: 204 lbs.
See you next week!
Way to go Allison! It is a difficult journey to lose and maintain weight loss. I battle with it on a daily basis. You do have to think of it as a life style change and not a diet, that’s the difference between moving forward or falling back after you reach your goal weight. You are a strong woman, and your post is so positive and inspiring! Good luck!
The thing about having to lose weight, is that you have to do it for the rest of your life. That’s why I hate saying diet. It’s a total lifestyle change that you have to commit the rest of your life too. It makes it easier to stay in track and lose weight. Once I stopped thinking of it as a diet, I have been able to keep my weight that I’ve lost off. Because I can’t ever go back to the way I used to eat.
I know the starting over game all too well. Still, you learn a little something every time you take those few steps back before going forward again. You can do this! Best of luck.
Oh, my goodness, I can totally relate to this post! Being overweight IS uncomfortable. I hate it. I really do. I know my weight is partially to blame for why I’m as self-conscious as I still am and I know losing the weight won’t “cure” me, but I also know it will go a long way in helping me to see my own strengths and learning to love my body. It’s very hard to love the body I have now because I’m not treating it in the way I should.
It’s not about dieting. It’s not about a timeline. It’s not about swimsuit season or looking good for anyone else but ourselves. It’s about changing our lifestyles. Changing our ways of thinking about food and exercise. And that? That is a hard, long, arduous, uphill battle. It’s not going to be easy and I keep forgetting that. But it’s 100%, totally and completely worth it. My mom has shown me how incredibly worth it losing weight is and I really need to stop making excuses and finish what I started.
We got this.
Dude. We totally got this.
And I had no idea how uncomfortable it was until I lost weight and then gained it back. I have a spare tire, which means sometimes when I’m sitting I literally feel like I’m suffocating. It makes it really hard to do work because I don’t really want to be sitting at my computer. It’s actually more comfortable to stand or walk around!
I’d love it if you joined me with my Weekly Weigh Ins. I’ve found the community support to be SUPER beneficial.
I think it’s really brave of you to post about this. A person’s battle with weight is so personal, but it’s great to have a community behind you to support you and hold you accountable.
It is totally a lifestyle change, just as you said. I lost about 35 pounds over the course of a year back in 2009. I did it by joining weight watchers, which worked for me, but does not work for everyone, I’m know. I made a lot of changes, especially in regards to portion sizes. And I learned what foods i could not have in the house, like certain kinds of chips, like cheetos. It took discipline and hard work, but it was so worth it.
And these days, I don’t feel like I am missing out. I still eat delicious food and treaf myself to things like fries occasionally, but I’ve found way to strike a happy medium. And you will too! best of luck to you! you can do this!!!
I was on Weight Watchers in high school and again in 2008, but I had a hard time with it. I couldn’t adjust to having to count a whole new set of numbers. I already have to count carbs for my diabetes. But with calorie-counting, MyFitnessPal provides calories and carbs, so it’s like one-stop shopping. That’s why it worked so well for me. Also, calories and carbs are both found on nutrition labels, so I wasn’t dealing with arbitrary “points” that I had to figure out. But counting some kind of number definitely helps me because I am notoriously bad at under-estimating what I’m actually consuming!
That makes sense… I wouldn’t want to count 2 things – that would be confusing! I liked the e-tools approach to WW because then I didn’t have to actually calculate the points… If I had to calculate them myself, I don’t think I would have liked the program as much!!
I think Myfitnesspal and other aps like that are great! For me it was all about being more aware of how much I was eating! When I was training for my half last fall, I used myfitness pal to see the breakdown of my carbs/protein/fat. It was interesting because it turned out I was not eating enough carbs… but having a gluten intolerance makes that tough!! So I had to think more about how to get carbs into my diet! Granted, as a diebetic, I am sure you are a pro at knowing what all has carbs in it!!!