You've Got to Have Faith

I created this blog more than two months ago, but I'm making my first post today. I wish I still weighed what i did back then -- Christmas and the January blues have combined to push my weight high enough that my scale won't even register my weight any more. :( If that's not a wake up call that it's time to start losing weight, I don't know what is.

So, here's a bit of personal history. I've been overweight since my earliest childhood memories -- which actually start around age 7 when my Mom got married to my Step Dick. I vascillated between being overweight and obese during childhood -- mostly based on whether or not I mustered a growth spurt. I spent a lot of time alone after school, and my favorite companions were television, books, and Chef Boyardee. We lived in the country, where it should have been easy to be active, but I'm an only child and didn't much see the use of playing outside by myself. My first diet was called "Thin Kids" and I started it at age 11. it was actually a very good program -- it emphasized exercise and play, and eating good, whole foods rather than processed junk. It was also 30 miles away in Shreveport. My Mom had to drive home from work, drive me back to town, and drive me back home. It lasted about four weeks. The next official diet was about 4 years later. Mom and I did it togther. Calorie restrictions and lots of exercise. We competed with each other, and it was very good for both of us, but then we moved and my Dad got cancer and my Aunt got cancer, and boy let me tell you, unless you have exercise and dieting as a part of your life from an early age, they are the first things to go when you're under a lot of stress and time restrictions. Which is stupid, really. Would you stop bathing if something bad happened in your life? Would you stop doing your dishes? Of course not. But that's what I've always done in my relationship with healthy eating and exercise. Since that diet, I've tried many, many more. Atkins (did anyone else get constipated?), LA Weight Loss (which was so restricted to tasteless foods that I lost weight by not eating anything at all), Body for Life (which actually worked really really well -- my body started to look good after only losing 25 lbs -- but I thought of it as a diet and so it was something I could "quit" which I did around finals week in my master's program), Dr. Phil (also worked well, but that one hit the cutting room floor around the time i took my next vacation), Winning by Losing (never really worked for me), and South Beach (which made me so lightheaded and energy deficient that I didn't last long). I figure in my life time I've cumulatively lost more than 200 pounds, and gained it all back, which is why I need to lose about 195 pounds right now to reach my goal weight of 160 pounds. The problem with having been on all these diets and letting them go and gaining the weight back is that I am having a crisis of faith in myself and my ability to keep off the weight I lose and to commit to losing weight in the first place. There are days when I am resigned to being a Fat Person. There are days when I believe that I have let myself become so incredibly obese because I get a payoff from it -- I don't have to challenge myself or push myself physically, and get to live entirely inside my head with this thing called my body participating only periodically in my daily existence. There are days when fear rules me -- what if I lose weight and have piles of loose skin? But most of my days lately -- and yes, I think about being fat every single day, at least once an hour -- are spent wondering if I will come through, if I will be able to commit, if I will be able to discipline myself to do this thing that is absolutely crucial to my physical, emotional and mental health. My faith in myself has been challenged. The question is -- will I become an athiest, and stop believing in myself at all? I don't think that's an option. I think I have to do this thing, or at least keep trying, because otherwise I'm giving up on myself.

My boyfriend and I are both sick of being overweight. Well, he's overweight. I'm obese. Morbidly so. But we both need to lose weight. As you've probably surmised, I've read most weight loss, fitness, and dieting books out there, as well as some popular blogs. From all that reading, I figure the number one most important factor in successful weight loss is programming your environment for convenient access to healthy food and exercise. That's part of what I was missing in my previous attempts. Either I didn't have access to a gym, or I didn't get all the junk food out of my house so I was tempted by it, or whatever. This is not to minimize my own role -- the hand that holds the fork is the hand that rules the hips. Or something. My will power -- or disaprin, as my friend J would say -- has been severely lacking. But when will power fails, what have you got left but your environment to keep you from jumping over the brink? So as a result of this reasoning, I have some new House Commandments:

1) Thou shalt not bring junk food into the house;
2) Thou shalt ride the exercise bike at least 5 times per week;
3) Thou shalt eat a balanced breakfast every morning;
4) Thou shalt consume at least 5 servings of fruit and vegetables per day;
5) Thou shalt keep an exercise and food journal;
6) Thou shalt plan your meals in advance;
7) Thou shalt set weight loss goals and rewards;
8) Thou shalt weigh in once per week;
9) Thou shalt be honest with yourself with the assistance of this blog;
10) Thou shalt not seek perfection, but progress instead.

My plan for this blog is to post weekly goals and rewards, to write about challenges and successes, and to seek understanding and health of and for my body.