Finding My Weigh

How many times have I said this is IT? This is the year I get it DONE? How many times have I tried and failed before the month is over? Let’s be honest, before the first week is even over. How many times have I taken that failure as a sign that I was not meant to succeed? Our minds keep us locked into our comfortable existences and holds us hostage to our failed dreams.

My New Year’s resolution for this year is the same as it was last year and, frankly, for the last couple of decades; which is to lose weight.

To say that I need to weigh considerably less and become more fit is like a recording on a continuous loop. It occupies my mind and focus until I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t thinking about weight. It didn’t help that the diet industry in the 80’s and 90’s got it wrong. The sugar companies did not like hearing that they were the cause of American obesity, so they threw fat under the bus. I bought into it in the 80’s and was so good at cutting the fat out of my diet I gave myself Dermatitis. I tried to accept myself for who I was. I tried to embrace the size I couldn’t seem to change. That lasted about 10 minutes.

Talk show hosts and their guests have been telling me the reason I have been unable to lose weight is because I don’t love myself. Fine. Interesting that they never actually give you a step-by-step process explaining how to love yourself. It is so easy to say that to people, but no one has the first clue how to make it happen.

Do I love myself? I know I don't hate myself. It is a long process learning to make ourselves a priority, most of us feel we are selfish putting ourselves first; but I have learned over the years that if I don’t, no one else will.

Time is marching on; I am now approaching Grandmother mode and still have not managed to be at the size I should be – according to doctors and official standards that is- to be healthy. Forget what the fashion industry adamantly insists you should look like, most of us have evolved into not expecting ourselves to look like a svelte, thin model anymore. When I realized I am at least a foot shorter than the models who show off the latest clothing trends, I decided that it would be better to be healthy than thin. Thin is relative. Thin is subjective.

I looked the best I was ever going to look when I got married. A lot of people can probably relate to that. My preoccupation with diet has a long lineage. I have always worried about my weight and how I looked. I tried to raise my daughter to not stress about weight, but she had her own issues growing up. Thankfully, she has a scientific mind and has been able to come to terms with her body and isn't spending her life obsessing about her weight.

I have been fortuitous all my life when it comes to health. Even dealing with being overweight or, dare I say it? Obese. I have been incredibly lucky. I am now in my 60’s and my luck is running out. I am stiff all the time, my body hurts, I weigh the most I ever have, thanks to this last Covid-19 year of isolation.

When the doctor said I was pre-diabetic after my annual exam this year, something finally clicked, like fear. Add into the mix the fact that my only daughter is getting married in August and my ex-husband and his new wife will be there; my self-love is at an all-time low.

It is time. Time to get over the issues that have prevented me from following a plan and reaching a goal. Time to forget about the magazines diet-of-the-week. Time to make life changes. Those are harder than following a regimen in a magazine. Chiefly because, in my mind, I am telling myself that I only have to do this for 7 days, or 10 days or 2 weeks and then I can be normal again. But what is normal? That is the key. I must change how I think about weight and diet. A clue is that there is the word "die" in diet.

The first mindset change has to be that I am no longer on a diet. I am setting habits that -in theory- I will follow for the rest of my life. For me, it is all about baby steps. I can only change one thing at a time if I want it to stick. This is why it takes people a full year or more to lose 100 pounds. Well, I am finally giving myself that year. No more impatience and killing myself to get it all off in six months. No more illusions.

My number one problem is that I am sedentary. I always have been and probably always will be. I hate exercise and I love to sew. I hate walking and I love watching movies, I hate playing outdoor games and I love reading. Hiking is right out. So, the first order of business was to find something I could do, consistently, and make a habit of it. It needed to be so good I wouldn’t talk myself out of doing it.

I ended up getting a rowing machine and a set of exercise dance tapes. I have been successful at this 6-day exercise plan for many weeks now. This is huge!! This is a first. This gives me hope I may finally succeed this time. Let the self-love begin!

So now in January, after the holidays, I began the food portion of this resolution. The first order of business was to give up sugar. Usually difficult but now I have the added incentive of trying to stave off diabetes. Another resolution is not to place too high of expectations on myself that I cannot possibly meet. Another old sabotage trick I picked up over the years.

I found a food plan that makes sense to me. I took one of those online tests and not surprisingly, I am a food addict. No one likes the words “addict”, “obese”, or “at risk”. They are debilitating, humiliating words. I would like to erase those words especially when referring to myself. I am following an amazingly simple, easy, not expensive plan that doesn’t need a lot of thought. The point is to NOT think about food all the time.

As you can see this is a mega resolution. This is a colossal resolution. This is a monumental resolution. But does making it on New Years give it more weight (pardon the pun) than if I started at any other time? I think it does. There is something about the beginning of a new year that erases the old, tired problems and sad misfortunes of the past year. Hope springs eternal when a new year begins.

I have read a million “inspirational” stories about people achieving their goals, but each person is different, what works for them may not work for me and I can’t let their successes define my own. I have to get out of my own head, but also stay in my own head. This is complicated to understand but essentially, I need to listen to my body and my own needs and stop trying to follow someone else’s agenda.

After all these years I finally understand it is all about choices. Do I choose to continue filling my ample body with trash and hope that my luck holds out and I don’t die of an early coronary? Or do I choose to take control of my addiction and learn to live with it? This is my life, and I must reformat it to be the best I can be. No one can do it for me. Diet companies want you to think they can do it for you, but if I follow something blindly without really, mentally making a change, I will go back to old habits.

They say that eating chocolate cake doesn't taste as good as being thin feels.

Uh huh. Well, if you have never been thin it is easier to imagine eating the chocolate cake. Some of those sayings do not do it for me. Oh, and I don’t “cheat” anymore. There is no cheating on a life plan, there is only choices. Some choices are good, some are not so good.

I spent my life thus far beating myself up for not being able to meet my weight loss goals. All the diet gurus tell you not to beat yourself up if you fall off the wagon, but you know you will anyway. I have finally turned the corner on that one. Like I said, there is no cheating, or falling off the plan, there is just making good choices or poor choices and moving on from each one; waving goodbye to the choice, not dwelling on the ramifications of eating a few calories more, or not eating enough. After all, tomorrow is another day.

I may never be able to eat sugar again. I am a food addict, eating just one of something doesn’t cut it with me. I understand now, because of the lack of accurate information out there when I was growing up, that I will always have problems relating to weight. But there are alternatives and incentives, and it is up to me to find them and make my own way. I am finally, this year, taking responsibility instead of blaming everyone and everything for my failures.

New Year’s resolutions give us a reset button to try and get it right. It is time. Way past time. But accomplishments or deficiencies will not define me as a person. This year I will not look at success and failure as a black and white issue. This year can be different, this year I have a chance to create a better, healthier way of looking at my weight. As a result I may be able to do it this time. This year I will forgive myself for being human and be more tolerant of others when they are not perfect as well.

When I have felt the most vulnerable, when I have been at rock bottom and the love is not there, what brings me back is the thought that dying is easy, it’s living that’s hard.

I was always up for a challenge.