back on track

It’s been a while since I've written about weight loss, hasn’t it? There’s a reason for that. Yes, the obvious one. After I quit Weight Watcher’s, I fell off the wagon but good. I feel no guilt, though perhaps a bit of chagrin. I had an intensive March, a busy April, and a stressful May. I didn’t have the emotional wherewithal to be careful about what I ate and conscientious about how much exercise I got.

I do think it’s possible to lose weight when you’ve got a lot going on in your life; I lost ten pounds around the time Damian was diagnosed (on purpose, I should add), though I quickly regained it plus some. But it is harder. Weight loss is like a job. Not a full time job, thankfully, or nobody would do it, but it’s an extra commitment. Time to plan your meals, to figure out how to organize your life differently, to shop with more focus and attention, time to exercise enough to lose the weight and firm the body. It’s self-sustaining at a certain point: the endorphins make the exercise become its own reward, healthy food makes you feel better and gives you more energy, the compliments and the way you fit into your clothes give you the positive reinforcement to continue.

But then something throws you off track. And once you’re off, it takes nearly as much willpower to get back on as it did to start in the first place. I’ve tried a few times over the past few months but in a half-hearted, can’t-I-get-away-without-a-food-log? sort of way. And of course I couldn’t. And of course I didn’t. I still felt greedy, felt deprived at the very idea of not being able to eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I wasn’t ready. But something’s shifted lately, and it’s not just that my jeans are a little too snug now. It’s the same thing that happened just before I started on Weight Watcher’s last July. I’ve been eating the same indulgent way but not enjoying it as much. It felt like almost a duty. Like a habit of thinking. I Must Eat Sweet, Rich Food. I Must Be Decadent. It’s almost as if something changes inside, that greedy needy part of my brain finally releases me and I can turn back into a weight-watching careful person. I like this woman, the one who sweats hard every day and who takes pleasure, not just in the weight loss, but in the way she feels along the way, in control and powerful.

I believe now that I need breaks. When losing weight starts to feel like an annoying chore, it’s time to stop. When it feels like something I miss for my own self-image and sense of well-being, it’s time to start again.

I ate twenty one points’ worth of food today. I also did twenty two minutes on the Nordic Track. I’m ready again.

Posted by Tamar at May 31, 2004 10:39 PM