The First Notice

I've noticed changes occurring in my body for several weeks now and yesterday, for the first time, others noticed as well. 

I wore an old dress to church. It was a dress I got for my brother's wedding in 2006 and I think I've worn it only a few times since then. And it wasn't a dress really but more of skirt and a top. 

I didn't feel comfortable in the outfit when I bought it, but I had to have the outfit for that big day. That's probably why I haven't worn the outfit much since then. Well, yesterday I was sick of my clothes and sick of wearing all the old things I had in my closet. And I happened to try on that outfit . . . and what do you know? It fit. It actually more than fit. Suddenly, I had a new outfit. 

I actually felt pretty too. It was such a pleasure to wear something different, something that felt soft and beautiful and something that made me feel powerful and feminine all at once. 

I felt long and lean and I wasn't even wearing Lycra. 

I also cut my hair this week. I had several inches chopped off and so instead of throwing my hair back in a clip, I wore it down. Between the hair and the clothes, I created a little stir. I think when you look the same week after week after week after week, it is refreshing to see change. And that is what everyone was commenting on. The changes. 

The thing is I've been a bit worried about the comments. Last time (2004-2005), I found myself preening for every look and every comment. I found myself hungry for affirmation and attention. I felt a bit like compliment addict. Always wanting more. 

Two weeks before my big kaboom experience in February 2005, I seemed to be riding a compliment cascade. I couldn't go to church, work or any function without people coming up to me and commenting about the way I looked. Each time that happened, I felt a momentary rush and then I would revert to my head and my obsessive compulsive calculations of how much I could lose and fast I could lose it. Every compliment seemed to heighten my need to continue losing weight. Every comment put just another pound of pressure on me to continue to perform. Every word of encouragement my way sent me just a little bit more over the edge. 

Why did all of that happen? I haven't figured out all the pieces and parts to that puzzle, but here are some initial conclusions. 

• Wrong focus: My focus was wrong from the beginning. My initial desire in 2004 was to get healthy but as soon as I started to lose weight, that focus shifted from "I want to be healthy" to "I want to be pretty." Well, it is a lot easier to control healthy than it is to control pretty. Today, instead of worrying about how I look, I ask myself more often, how I feel. Focusing on my feelings is something I can always do--big or small--and those feelings inform me more about the world and my purpose in it than how I look. I want to take the focus off how I look. 
• Perfectionism: The one stunner of an Achilles heel that the plan had that I was doing in 2004-2005 was a phrase called "Perfect on Plan" or POP. I would get on the discussion boards and team up with other members and we would play a game for six weeks at a time where the goal every day was to be POP. POP meant you ate a meal every three house that was measured exactly and that you exercised every day. If you were POP every day, you gained more points for your team. I worked on being POP to perfection. Perfection is a doozy of bomb that will explode in your face the more you pursue it. I'm learning to live imperfectly now. 

I think both of these things contributed greatly to the extreme emotional blowout that I had. Both were fed and nurtured under the bright lights of "attention." 

Which makes me just a bit wary of that kind of attention again. 

Weigh-In for Saturday, September 6, 2008

This whole weigh in thing I've really got to watch. One of my downfalls in 2004/2005 was an obsession with the scale. I would weigh every day. sometimes twice a day, in my great push to LOSE weight. I had started losing weight because I wanted to feel better but it quickly turned into "how many pounds can I lose and how quickly can I lose them?" scenario. I was constantly calculating where I would be in a month or six months or a year. It was nonstop for me.

Then came my big KABOOM experience in 2005 and I went from losing about 15 pounds a month to gaining 30 pounds in 4 weeks. It didn't stop there. Within NINE months I had gained 130 pounds and I wanted to DIE.

So, I'm only weighing once a month to mark my progress. There will be no daily weigh-ins. No nonstop tabulations. No twice-daily readings on the scale. This is the not the thing to determine my happiness or my health. It is only a marker, a note to progress, an acknowledgement of effort. It is not the sum of my existence, the reason for my smile, the last clinging hope of my faith.

It is a just a scale. And regardless of what I lose on the scale, I am more than that number. Always and forever.

Let that be my mantra, no matter the monthly weigh-in and its highs and lows.

Weight: 336.1

Waist: 51.25

Hips: 56.75

KABOOM Learning Experience

Starting Weight in January 2004: 315 pounds

Followed a program where I ate 6 times a day with strict guidelines on protein, carbs, veggies, fruit.

Learned a lot about my body on this plan.

Weight in February 2005: 209 pounds

Total Loss for 2004: 105 pounds

The Emotional Explosion: February 2005
Began eating carbs and sugar. Swooped deeply into emotional no-man's land. Wouldn't come up for air for a very, very long time. I now have a much clearer picture of the devastation of diet mentality.

January 2006: Gained 130 pounds in 9 months.