It’s been almost 2 weeks since I’ve posted here and since I wrote about how I realized I was afraid to lose weight. It’s not that I didn’t want to write, it’s that I didn’t know what to write because I was trying hard to figure out what was going on inside my head (tends to be a crazy, chaotic place). However, I did manage to muster up the courage to talk to my Weight Watchers leader about my fear of losing weight the same day I wrote the post about my fears although I wasn’t able to find the courage to step on the scale and instead used a weigh-in pass (I’m such a wimpy baby sometimes).
My leader (facilitator) told me what happened to her in one of her first meetings as a leader. Somebody had asked my leader how she felt after losing weight and obviously my leader said how great it was. Then another person in the meeting spoke up and said, “don’t expect it to change your life because it didn’t change mine. I lost 100 pounds but I still have an alcoholic husband who is abusive and won’t work and my life is still a mess.”
That “story” helped me to realize that I’ve been expecting too much from my weight loss. Yes, losing the excess weight will make me a healthier, happier, and more confident person but it’s not going to be a magic wand that is going to change my entire life and make all my problems go away. I’ll still need to deal with those other problems and worries. And I think that having everything in my life being all “sunshine and puppy dog” happy was what I was thinking weight loss was going to do for me.
It’s sad to realize losing weight won’t change everything; but on the other hand it will change a lot of things in a good way (how I fit into airplane seats, how other people will view me as being a normal weight person versus being a fat person, better health, greater sense of well-being, more confidence, and a huge sense of accomplishment from achieving the weight loss).
Plus, in the end I realized that I had two choices in regards to losing weight. I can either do it or not do it. The choice is mine. When I talked to my leader she said to not let Weight Watchers decide what I’m going to weigh. Before you think I have a horrible leader, hear me out. She pointed out how I’ve lost over 50 pounds and that maybe I wanted to work on maintaining that weight loss instead of doing the yo-yo up and down with my weight that I’ve been going through for the past few months. She also said I’m a lot more than a number on the scale. The number is just that – a number. It doesn’t make me a bad person.
I think she was using some of her reverse psychology on me, because after pondering our conversation for a few days I realized that I really do want to lose the rest of my excess weight (she’s sneaky but very effective because instead of preaching she says little things to help a person realize on their own what they really want – she’s an awesome Weight Watchers leader!).
So I took a deep breath and stepped back on the scale at Weight Watchers last week and faced it. I had gained back 7.6 pounds of the 57 I had lost. Instead of berating myself for gaining weight back I decided to be happy that I didn’t gain it all back like I have dozens of times in the past.
I worked hard to stay within my allotted points this past week along with exercising, drinking lots of water, and eating a bunch of fruits and vegetables every day.
This morning at Weight Watchers the scale showed a 3.6 pound weight loss for a total of 53 pounds! I’m headed back in the right direction.
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