#877 starting over at WW

I went to WW this morning and I lost two pounds!

Ok, full disclosure time. From December 8 to February 23, I gained 10 pounds.That's right, 10 pounds. Over the past couple of years, I have been gaining a lot more than I was losing. I've basically been paying Weight Watchers to watch me gain weight. At one point, I have been down 80 pounds from where I started. Now I'm at around 49 lbs down from my original starting weight. As you can imagine, this gain has taken a toll on my psyche and my self-esteem and my self-confidence.

At the height of my weight loss success, I remember listening and talking to people who were on a weight loss journey of their own. When they told me they had lost weight but gained some (or all) of the weight back, I remember smugly thinking, "That will never happen to me. I have made a change in my life. I am never going back." OUCH. First rule of life: Never say never.

It is so incredibly easy to fall back into old habits. First I stopped tracking what I was eating. I thought I could handle it; I thought I could keep track of it in my head. I can't. Without the accountability of writing down what I was shoving down my gullet, I shoved down whatever was sitting on a plate. Cookie? Sure! Another helping at dinner? You bet! No time to prepare something to take to work for lunch? I'll just pick something up and it's probably not a salad. Man, I'm too tired after a long day of work. Let's order a pizza. And breadsticks.

Then there was the knee surgery and the recovery. We had take-out food a lot. I don't blame MT. He worked hard all day and he's not much of a cooker, anyway. There were quite a few nights that I had a cheeseburger AND fries AND a shake. To make matters worse, I wasn't in a position where I could exercise hard enough to work off those calories. I was sedentary. The physical therapy I was doing wasn't to meant to burn fat. It was meant to strengthen and regain mobility in my knee.

When I went back to work, I wasn't happy. I was gone a long time at a critical part of the year and things went on without me (of course) but I felt like I was behind, which I was. I know that I was difficult to be around and I seriously considered trying to find another job somewhere else. Because of the stress I was feeling, totally caused by my own actions, I was doing some serious emotional eating and I still wasn't exercising. Oh, I'd do a little bit here and there, but I always had the "I'm recovering from knee surgery" excuse to fall back on when I wasn't getting the results I thought I should. The truth is, the knee was fine. It could take what I was giving it. I just mentally wasn't ready to push it and take control of my behavior. 

Then there was Christmas and the cold cold January and February went by and that last Saturday of February, when I saw the big number on the scale and the small cumulative weight loss number, I had had enough. I asked the WW lady to highlight that day's entry on my card and make a note that it was my START OVER date. She agreed and I set a new goal and re-committed myself. My effort over the week resulted in the two pound loss.

It wasn't easy. It's way easier to hit the snooze button at 5 AM than to get up and exercise. It's way easier to flop on the couch and watch TV than to go to the gym for cycling class on Monday and Wednesday night. I've already talked about how simple it is to pick up fast food for lunch or dinner. It takes some effort to plan your meals and snacks every day. It takes time to write down what you are eating, and if you're on the WW plan, to find the PointsPlus values for those foods.

Still, I felt really happy this morning when the leader told me about the weight loss. I felt good about myself, and I thought about how it was worth it to get up and sweat while Jillian Michaels told me what to do. I was glad that I skipped watching TV a couple of times to go to cycling class. I didn't miss anything. I can watch "Survivor" On Demand and it will be fine. I took lunch to work four out of five days last week, and the day I went out, I got a salad and it tasted damn good. I even splurged once this week at dinner and had a cheeseburger and fries (small).

I'm going to be ok. I know how to do this, but I can't afford to take my eye off the ball again. All the clothes I bought while I was losing weight are tight and they don't look good stretched out over my body. I worked too hard to take off the weight and what I've put back on had demoralized and saddened me and that's not how I want to feel.

So...that's all I have to say about that FOR TONIGHT. You can bet your sweet patootie that I'll be talking about this topic a lot more this year. I'm not saying I have to reach my goal weight this year. I am saying that I have to get back into the good habits that led to the weight loss. Losing the pounds is a follower of the good habits and lifestyle that I am living. I really believe that because I know for sure that it is true.

Wish me luck and send good vibes and if you see me eating a cookie or something that might not be a good choice, don't say something snide. Just ask me if I have planned for that splurge in my tracking that day. :)