by Claire on September 28, 2011
Sitting at mom’s last night, she quietly asks me, “Have you gained weight?”. Her tone was one of concern because she knows how hard I’ve worked to lose 81 pounds and she’s one of my biggest cheerleaders in my weight loss journey.
The answer is, sadly, yes. I’ve gained back about 15 of that 81 pounds over the last year or so. Not a ton – all things considered – but it’s visible (at least to me) around the waistline and thighs. And I feel it.
What happened? Lots of reasons:
- Stopped tracking my food.
- Stopped paying strict attention to food portions and choices.
- Stopped exercising regularly.
- Increased stress, worry, and depression.
- Stopped putting myself first.
- Weight Watchers changed their plan and gave me more points, which I thought meant I could eat much more each day. Calories in. Calories out. It all adds up.
- Lost my walking buddies and didn’t replace them with new ones.
- Lost my bicycling partners and didn’t replace them with new ones.
- Hit menopause.
- Stopped going regularly to my meetings for support.
The good news:
- I know what to do.
- I can do it all again.
- I can start now, today.
- I can put myself first and my family will thank me for it.
- I can make better food choices and not go hungry – even when dining at mom’s place with her or dining out.
- I haven’t changed clothing sizes.
- I am determined and willful in a positive way.
- I have support of family, friends, and my Weight Watchers group.
- I can bicycle or walk or run by myself and don’t have to wait for others.
Can = will do.
Now.
Photo credit: http://comicadze.com/
Mom’s moving to a retirement and assisted living home. As part of that move, my daughters and I are helping her sort through her stuff to see what goes in the trash, what gets donated or sold, what comes home with me, and what goes to her new, 800 sq. ft. apartment from her 1200 sq. ft. condo.
Through that process, we came across some letters that I had written to my mother when I was at boarding school in Plymouth, England. I knew that when I was a teenager, from about the time I was 15, I started being conscious of my weight – for some reason I thought I was fat. I wasn’t. I was a slim 130 (if that) 5’6” healthy teenager. I was active in competitive swimming, school sports including the occasional cross-country run, every other weekend “expeditions” consisting of 20 mile hikes across southern England carrying a backpack (stuffed with contraband) and a sleeping bag.
My memories of my teenage years are somewhat fragmented but I had always thought of myself as healthy, albeit depressed a lot, but that’s a different topic. What really opened my eyes was this paragraph I wrote to mom:
“I’m on a diet. Today I ate only five carrots and a biscuit.”
My heart is broken when I look back at the young girl who was so lost and thought that eating only five carrots and a biscuit was a healthy diet. No one noticed that it was the sign of an eating disorder. And yes, I now think I probably had a pretty active eating disorder. The picture above is me at my high school graduation. I had a 23 inch waist at the time. I was proud of that.
Things soon changed when I went to college because I switched over to eating hamburgers and milkshakes and quickly lost that 23” waist. It grew even further about six months later when I became pregnant at age 18. Then I switched from eating 5 carrots a day to eating bread and sugar sandwiches.
Good lord. No wonder by the time I hit Weight Watchers I was nearly 100 pounds overweight. I would go in cycles of binging and not eating. Nothing was normal or healthy. I didn’t know what healthy was. I was never taught, or never witnessed, healthy eating.
Now I know better. And I’m glad I wrote that letter. It resurfaced at just the right time. My life focus is now on being healthy – body, mind, and spirit – and going to whatever lengths I can to make that happen.
Tagged as:
anorexia,
Attitude,
binge eating,
eating disorder,
emotional growth,
healthy eating,
weight gain,
Weight Loss,
Weight Watchers
