My Weight Watchers career is like a motorway car crash. I know I don’t really want to see it but I can’t resist looking and today I saw written evidence of much of my UK WW “wreck” . Ready?
They don’t have my 1995 card but they do have records for 1998, 2000 and 2003. I guess I imagined 2001. Either way, never mind the losing, the worst thing is that I’ve regained weight at least four times in the past fifteen years. As I wait for an MRI on my biliary system I’m very aware of the research on the the risks of this type of “weight cycling”. sigh. Don’t do it, kids!
In 1995 I didn’t have scales but I was the smallest I’d been since I weighed around 135lbs in my 20′s but by March 1998 I was back up to 158lbs (which I thought was very heavy) and worked hard until July to get to 142 and Gold for the first time ever.
Here’s what is written about my “Maintenance” career:
28 July 98 – 142
11 Aug 98 – 142
18 Aug 98 – 143
17 Nov 98 – 147.5
And then I go back to “real” life – or so I liked to call it. No more obsessing about food (ie paying attention to what I was eating), no more thinking about whether or not I was eating more calories than my body needed.
My next weigh-in was almost two years later:
10 Oct 00 – 163.5 – more than 20 pounds over my goal weight.
I go to meetings for exactly four weeks, losing 5.5lbs and give up again.
Another two years go by during which I no doubt diet a few times and bounce around down and up a few pounds.
1 Apr 03 – 160.5 Here we go again. I only stuck around for a couple of weeks but I know that I did take off the weight because I joined BCB and did it with on-line support and accountability. I got back down to the low 140s in time for a major wedding event at a castle.
Five years later, in January 2008 I was up to 170lbs on my home scale so let’s say 173 at a Weight Watchers meeting – a full 30lbs heavier than I was in 1998.
And this is where the sun rises, the light dawns, the penny drops – add your favourite cliché. If I don’t want to be fat, I have to make “forever” changes. Well duh. In my life I’ve been an academic achiever but brains mean nothing in the weight loss world. If you don’t think you can make permanent changes then you are doomed to a life on the weight loss/weight gain pendulum.
I managed to lose over 20lbs on my own but hit a sad life blip with disaster in my parents’ lives and put on a few pounds. Before that “blip” could get too far out of hand, I decided I needed a little face-to-face accountability and went back to WW. I weighed in at 158lbs in May 09. Nine months later I am 10lbs lighter.
But here’s the big news. After more than two years, I’ve had only that one fluctuation of more than 5lbs and that happened during a time of huge emotional upheaval.
That gives me hope for the rest of my days. I know that the next few years will bring on the menopause and a natural tendency to weight gain. I know that my body will age. I know that life will continue to throw out the curve balls of health issues and sadness and all the other challenges of life. But I’m NOT rolling over and giving up. I will keep moving and keep eating well, knowing that the alternative is so detrimental to my health and my sanity.
I feel a twinge of excitement at the thought of real permanent change in my life. Of course my little cynic is whispering “Just you wait”, but I’m going to ignore it and just get on with it. Maybe it’s the fact that the Olympic skeleton finals are on while I’m writing this, but I think I might hear a crowd ringing cowbells and shouting “Woo Hoo Millie! You can do it!”
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