A little over three years ago, I embarked on a weight loss journey that proved successful... for a while.
I'm pretty sure I knew that this was something I will have to work on for the rest of my life - but, as with any huge undertaking, I needed to do it one step at a time.
I am at a crossroads right now. I finished that weight loss regimen 56 pounds lighter than I was at the start. But since then, the pounds have gradually been packing back on. I wrote about that today on my main blog. What follows is a reminder of where I was - and where I don't want to ever be again:
I am not an idiot.
I know that at 5’2” and 184 pounds, I am obese. I look terrible. I am at risk for all kinds of horrible things, like heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.
At 51 years old, I feel like my body is falling apart. I think I’ve developed a touch of arthritis. My knees hurt when I climb stairs. I get winded easily. And I know that shedding pounds and my sedentary lifestyle can alleviate a lot of these problems, add years to my life and better the quality of it.
I know these things. But knowing it and making it happen are two different things.
It’s not as if I haven’t tried to deal with it in the past. I’ve been on diets and exercise programs on and off since I was a teenager, sometimes managing to stick with the new lifestyle for years at a time.
But the lifestyle changes never seem to stick. I was not an athletic child, preferring activities like reading and writing to running about the neighborhood. I could not catch and could not throw and was always the last kid picked on my school’s teams (with the exception of games like “Spelling Baseball”).
When fitness evangelists spread the lie that exercise creates endorphins that make you feel good, I scoff. The only effect I feel from a workout is a stomach ache – and tons of sweat. That doesn’t make me feel good.
Two and a half years ago, I decided I didn’t want to be fat and 50. I guess the planets were all aligned properly, because I started the South Beach Diet, lost 20 pounds in six months and stuck to it for a year, a period that included a one-week cruise.
Then the holidays came, and we visited my husband’s family in the UK. As a houseguest in my mother-in-law’s home, I did not want to make a fuss over what I could and couldn’t eat. Besides, I wanted to sample all the meat pies and Cornish pasties – and out of this world Indian food. I can take or leave sweets, but a good Biryani is hard for me to resist.
I told myself that I would be able to get right back on the low carb train when we got back to the States, but it didn’t happen. I’d fallen off the wagon and could not get back on.
Eighteen months later, I’d gained back the 20 pounds PLUS an additional 15. I tried several times to get back on a diet. South Beach wasn’t working any longer, so I bought more diet books to see if I could find something that would.
Nothing appealed to me. So I bought clothes in larger sizes and put the decision off.
But I was alarmed that I’d gained so much weight so quickly. Most of the excess pounds had come on gradually, about five per year. 35 in a year and a half – that’s scary.
And then, I got an email telling me an old friend was in the hospital.
She’d suffered a stroke.
She’s my age.
She was the last person anyone would expect to have this kind of problem. She had a healthy lifestyle. She was a runner. She ate the right things.
You would think that would scare me enough to make an immediate change. I thought about it, but I didn’t. After all, my husband and daughter and I were scheduled to visit with my sister in Sacramento over the July 4th holiday, where we would engage in our annual orgy of margaritas, beer and munchies. I’d think about it when I got back.
But my body developed a new malady while I was up there: at the end of each very hot day in Sacramento (105 degrees and up), my feet would swell. They got so big that my flip-flops felt tight. It was uncomfortable. It was hard to walk on them. And it freaked me out.
I spent hours on sites like WebMD, trying to determine if this was something I should be worried about. Since the problem was in both feet, I ruled out anything dangerous like a blood clot or deep vein thrombosis. The most likely culprits were the heat… and my excess weight.
After all, swelling feet is a problem that is often experienced by women who are pregnant. And I now weighed more than I did eleven years ago, when I was carrying my baby.
It also could be a symptom of diabetes, which is something that could also be brought about my excess weight.
I decided it was time to lose this weight once and for all. I also decided that I could no longer kid myself that I could do it on my own.
