Thoughts

Reading the blogs in my sidebar today I am reminded of how courageous these folks are to put it out there. The effort to lose (or maintain a loss) is formidable in some cases...I feel quite small in the face of it.

My struggles are hardly monumental--and I feel as though I give into them more than I resist-- (though I have no idea how accurate that is. If the scale is our measure, then I must be doing something right as I believe I'm now down more than 15 pounds from where I "started.").

Nonetheless. I want to take a moment to write down what they make me think.

1. Food and what I eat may always be the subject of an internal dialogue. Should I eat this? Should I not? Should I put in on the plan for tomorrow? (This is one thing I love about Beck--she advocates you can eat anything you want--as long as you plan for it--and work it into your allotment of calories for that day.)

As a result, I will, probably, always, make a food plan for what I will eat on any given day. A drag. Yes. But that's life. The only time food isn't a struggle is when I choose to ignore it--and my weight. That's a choice--and a valid one. Sometimes, it's a necessary one. I am glad that I have not been preoccupied with my weight all my life.

In the Spring of 2001 I was about 165lbs. My weight crept up and up and up until, as I recall, October of 2008. Then, I weighed around 200 pounds. I quit smoking--and the next thing I knew I had gained about 30 lbs. In less than 6 months. Then, somehow, I got up to 258. That really scared me--so I set out in May of 2009 to lose weight. By September, I was down to 217. By May of 2010 I was back in the 240's. That stabilized until this Spring, when I went back up to 257 and decided to do something about it again.

But that's it. My weight history hasn't been all that dramatic or even all that interesting (to anyone but me, I'm sure!)

For me, the truth seems to be that if I pay attention to what I eat, I can lose weight. If I don't--then I gain. It's just a fact I have to accept--given that I do not want to weigh more than 200 pounds for the rest of my life.

Oh well.