weigh less than 190 lbs

was in November, 2011. I’d just gone through a brutal break up and got down to 186 in part bc my sadness took away my appetite. This was still many, many pounds heavier than my goal weight and yet it represented more than 20 pounds shed in total.

I remember people complimenting me on my weight loss which was lovely but I had many mixed emotions for me.

- I thought of how heavy I’d felt back when I initially began putting on weight and reached 150lbs; I’d felt huge at that point and now here I was at 186 being told that I looked great.

- I felt scared; I’d lost about 20 lbs but knew I still needed to lose more than twice that amount.

- I was ashamed; I grew up in a family riddled with anorexia and never wanted to have to think about weight and yet in allowing myself to get fat, I now had to focus on all the things I’d always wanted to not think about.

- People’s encouraging words sometimes had the unintended effect of making me feel pressured some days and complacent on others.

All these competing feelings helped pull me back off track again and within a year I climbed back to over 200lbs. I blame no one but myself for my back-sliding… and trust me, I kick myself!

However, I’m trying to learn from this mistake. I recently weighed in at a hair under 195lbs which is the lightest I’ve been in a months. I wonder how I can keep losing weight; not get pulled off track by my fears and pride and shame; appreciate all the kind support I receive without allowing it to have the unintended negative consequences.

For me, food and feelings go hand in hand. What can I do to maintain my focus and my emotional equilibrium as a start (fingers crossed) to lose more & more weight?

Any thoughts, musings, ideas and/or advice are warmly welcomed!

Thx

not only for health but also for weight loss. However, I’ve read time and time again that it’s the food intake that is most crucial for taking off and keeping off the pounds.

So, for 43 days (I’ve got 41 to go!), I’m going to do my best to not consume sweets. I realise that while, yes, I sometimes have too much butter on my bread or cheese in my salad, my big caloric input downfall comes from sweets. Caramel, chocolate, fudge, pecan pie, marshmallows, toffee, butterscotch, skor bars, Crunchie bars, ice cream… these things make my heart sing (and my waist band, tighten).

I’m hoping that keeping off sweets for more than a month will help push me into a healthier frame of mind and let me drop more pounds instead of constantly hovering just under 200lbs.

Please wish me luck. I’m currently feeling real pangs for sweets but I want to stay strong if for no other reason to show myself that I can.

It makes my heart heavy to add this back to my list of goals. I got below 190 for 3 weeks in a row so struck it off my list, as “goal accomplished.” I even stayed in the 180s for a little while.

However, I got sick a while back and had to spend a few weeks in bed. Even once I was up and about, I was unable to exercise: even walking was excruciating. My weight went back up and now I’ve weight in at over 190lbs for 3 weeks in a row (well, there were quite a few “sick weeks” when I didn’t weigh myself, but I seem to have just slowly & steadily gained during that time so I know it’s been well over 3 weeks).

Good news: I’m well again. Feeling almost back to my old self. And today I went to the gym and worked out for the first time in over a month. Bad news: I’ve put on weight and my clothes are tight; I need to get back on track and work hard even to get back to where I was.

I’m trying to not be too cross with myself about this. Not because I don’t feel like I deserve to be berated; I do! But I know that making myself feel bad doesn’t actually motivate me to improve my behavior. When I feel ashamed of myself, I tend to eat more, move less. So, I’m off to the grocery store tomorrow morning to load up on fruits & veggies and whole grains. I have absolutely no junk food, candies or cookies in the house. And my goal is to get to the gym every day for the rest of this week.

Two steps forward, one step back.