About 11-12 years ago I lost 67 lbs and got down to a decent size. I felt I had more to lose, but the awesome thing is, I maintained much of that loss for a rather long time. Two weeks ago I weighed and I’ve gained all but 25 of that back.
I know how to lose weight. I’m rather good at it. (Obviously, I’m good at gaining weight as well.) So, that morning I sat down and made a list of everything I needed to start doing again to lose it.
- Drink more water
- Move daily
- Eat more fruits and veggies
- Don’t take a second helping of anything
- Soda only once a week: one on Saturday
- Limit sugar intake
- Make better choices when eating out
- Don’t starve myself
- Snack healthy
- Treat occasionally
- Be good to myself
- Don’t give up
- Find support.
It’s the last one I got stuck on. Back in the day, I found my support system in my blogging friends. I belonged to a rather busy blogging community. Not so much these days. I miss that, but had to find another type of support. Some online friends had joined Weight Watchers and it hit me: double the support! Support from my friends and support in weekly WW meetings. I joined that morning.
My first week I lost 7.6 lbs. My second week nothing. What the actual Fruit Fly?? I am doing everything right. I even ate less than I did the week before! I barely even used my weekly points. Why aren’t the scales moving? I considered not even staying for the meeting. I sat down and messaged my friends and cried on their virtual shoulders. I never got the courage to speak up in the meeting, but it was as if others read my mind because two other ladies shared stories similar to my situation. After the meeting I talked to one of the leaders. Her verdict: I was eating too little. Who knew? Truthfully? I did. Like I said, I’m great at this. But substitute the word great with obsessive. When I set my mind to something, I go a bit nuts with it. Determination is a great thing. Obsessiveness, not so much.
I’m the youngest of three girls. I feed off praise. Tell me I am doing a great job and I will double the work I am doing to get even better. I was the kid at school who read and reread every “great work!” my teacher would write on my tests. Give me a gold star and I’d work myself into a joy frenzy. The blue dots* on the WW app are my gold stars. 7.6 lbs was my “great work!”. My thinking was this: I did good with my eating the first week, I can do even better the second week. So I ate even less and watched my blue dots continue to accumulate. Sometimes I would click on the progress chart just to stare at my blue dots. Ob. Sess. Ive. I knew I wouldn’t lose another 7.6, but I was hoping for a 2.3 to make it an even 10. Nope. Try 0.000000000
The thing is I KNOW eating too few calories is bad. I KNOW the body thinks you’re about to be stranded on an island with nothing but bugs and coconuts so it holds onto every last calorie it can find. I thought I was eating enough. The blue dot told me I was. I thought weekly points were just for those who couldn’t get satisfied after eating the dailies. I was satisfied. The growling tummy was just my body getting used to not eating half the kitchen in a day, right? Wrong. My body had already packed the sunscreen and was in line to step aboard the S.S. Minnow.
So… What now?
Now, I will remind myself this isn’t a race. It took me 3 years to lose the 67 lbs.
Now, I will jump off the train to Obsessivetown and get on the slow boat to It’s Gonna Happen, Just Not Tomorrow.
Now, I listen to my body. I continue to move. I continue to draw on the support from my friends and my WW group and most importantly, I don’t give up!
*You get a blue dot if you stay within a few points of your daily goal.
The last quarter of 2016 brought about rather big changes for our family. Our only born left for college, we moved 6 hours south to Austin, and I closed my store.
I started by placing my template over each t-shirt to see which ones would be too big (the design would get cut off) and which were too small (would include the seams) and eliminated both. Once I found which designs fit perfectly for the size I wanted, I began cutting them out with a rotary cutter, using the whole tshirt so that the back of the tshirt could be the back of my quilt.
I also cut out white flannel pieces with the same template and sandwiched them in between each front and back. Once I had all of my shirts cut and “sandwiches” made, I sewed an X on each one to stabilize the fabric.
Where did time go? Didn’t he just leave for his first day of Kindergarten?
The day after graduation we left to go down to Austin for his orientation.