Yes, you read that right. 361 lbs. Trust me, you are no more disgusted by that number than I was. I remember the day I saw that number so well. I was over at my friend, Heather's, house. I had gone to use her restroom and her scale was there and I thought what the hell, why not? I stepped on and quickly stepped right back off as that number popped up. 361 lbs. How the hell did that happen?
I have always been overweight. It wasn't until after my husband Michael and I got married that I actively tried to do something about it. We joined Weight Watchers. Great program, but it didn't fit the way my brain worked. I plugged away and within five years I managed to lose 50 lbs. yeah, it took my five years to lose 50 lbs. Not a stellar performance, I have to admit. It couldn't even keep it off while I was on WW. I had gained back about 15 lbs when I finally said fuck it, if I was gaining weight back I could do that just as well without paying $10 a week. So, I quit. I partially rationalized it by telling myself I was going to be saving gobs of money and I had been on WW for five years, of course I could do it on my own. Wrong, wrong, wrong!
I went right back into every bad habit I ever learned. It was awful. I was constantly eating crap foods and sitting on my ass. What did I expect to happen? My clothes got tighter, I felt worse physically and mentally. I finally had let enough weight pack on that I was no longer able to buy clothes from brick and mortar stores. I had to order everything and even half of that didn't fit. I could no longer easily do things that normal people could do like sit in a booth in a restaurant, walk down the hall without breaking a sweat and losing my breath...I couldn't bend down to tie my own damn shoes! My knees and ankles and feet constantly hurt and were often swollen. I disgusted myself. I couldn't bear to even look at myself in the mirror. I constantly thought about food. How wonderful it tasted and all the great things I could eat and when I would eat again and how much better food would make mefeel. Except it never did make me feel better, it just made me more disgusted with myself. But I just couldn't stop. It was my drug, my compulsion.
You'd think that seeing 361 pop up on that scale would have snapped me out of it, right? Wrong. That number meant that i weighed more than every other single person I knew. It meant that i had gained almost 100 pounds since quitting WW. It meant that I was even more disgusting than I had originally thought. I kept sitting on my ass and I kept shoveling food down my gullet, although not as bad as I had been. I tried to make a few better choices, but overall I was still eating crap food.
I should probably mention at this point that I see a therapist. It started out to help me learn how to deal with anxiety attacks, but Dr. P has helped me in a ton of ways, like with social anxiety and my (usually false) perceptions of what people think of me. It was around this time that I had met one goal and was ready to figure out a new goal to work toward. The one thing I wanted to do was get my desire for food under control and lose weight. I was so ashamed about my lack of control over it that I was almost too scared and ashamed to ask for help. I talked to Dr. P. I cried to her. I damn near begged her to help me figure out how to control myself and break my food addiction.
I knew WW wasn't the answer for me this time. I knew surgery wasn't the answer for me. I wasn't keen on the idea of a group like Overeaters Anonymous. I finally found a website that focused on counting calories, Lose It. After much thought, I decided that's what I'd do. I started on November 28, 2011. From the start, it was liberating to be able to eat whatever I wanted. Yes, I could do the same thing when I was on WW, but counting calories allowed me to have a much more realistic mindset about it. I have never felt deprived like I have to give anything up. On WW I had 30-something points I could eat a day. With counting calories, I started out with being able to eat around 1800 calories per day. That just sounds like so much more than 30 something points a day! I didn't weigh myself immediately when I started counting calories. I was scared of what the scale would say. I made myself get on the scale after that first week. 343 lbs. From May to November I had lost weight! Even without being on any program. That helped me see that even the smallest changes can give great results.
Since that time, which I count as my true starting point, I've lost 65 lbs. I feel great! I've gone from a size 34 pant size to being pretty solidly in a 28. I can shop in Lane Bryant again! I still have a really long way to go, but I'm getting there. Every day is a struggle, but every day that I can say that I controlled food rather than food controlling me is a pretty awesome day. I hope I haven't lost you in this huge, rambling post. I hope you come back and read more about where I've been and where I go with this. I hope you get even just a little bit from this blog that will help you.
I'll be back, but until then, here are some pictures...
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