I really hemmed and hawed about writing this post, normally, even though I share the deep and the dark, I rarely share the physical. I don't want to be trite or be like oh look at me. I don't want this to come off as some fitspo bullshit. I just want to be accountable and open.
As many of you know, I have always struggled with my weight. I put on a lot of weight after my first divorce, I was dealing with a lot of emotional baggage and healing from deep past trauma's. I am an emotional eater and find comfort in good food. Then I got sick and the medication piled on a bunch of weight and hormonal issues started to rise making it hard for me to get it off. Those of you have been around a long time have seem me try many "Diets" and then also seen me "Fail".
You are all aware of the immense pain I was in prior to my surgery and my inability to do most types of activity. All in all just a big mess....but nothing prepared me for when COVID hit.
I was living alone, I was panicked because I am so prone to serious lung infections and I was working from home. I didn't have access to the gym/pool anymore and I wasn't really moving a ton. I fell into a really terrible depression with the added sprinkle of anxiety! I am lucky to have a good support system and to be able to recognize the issues as they were starting. We got back on medication and I did what I could to foster self love, grace and self protection.
One day I slipped and fell on my steps, not a terrible fall but enough to make my back unbearable so I continued to do nothing and it got worse and worse and one day I woke from my fog and made an appointment to go see a chiropractor. I found an amazing health care facility that does total body health, dieticians, massage, chiro, PT, etc. and during my intake they took my weight and I nearly fell to the floor.
I was the heaviest I had ever been., like significantly heavier....like 75 lbs heavier! I was totally ashamed. Over the next few months, I started taking care of my body and trying to find opportunities to move. Then our local pool opened back up and I got back in the water. I had to buy a new bathing suit because mine was too small and I wasn't seeing a ton of change.
Tom and I are bad for ordering in when we are stressed or busy or lazy and i was starting to pay attention to what I was eating. I was trying to make changes but I just kept "failing".
100 days ago, in an act of desperation, I reached out to the one thing that worked for me so many years ago....Weight Watchers. A co-worker had done WW's the year before and lost a significant amount of weight.
I have to be honest, I didn't really think it was going to work, it didn't before in the long run but I needed to do something. I found out when my next meeting would be near me and I started tracking what I ate, no restriction just a week of seeing what I put in my mouth....yikes.
I went to my first meeting and it was so encouraging, here were normal people just like me, some at the same stage as me, some having put in more time and work, some having met their lifetime goals. But what I noticed more than anything was the language they were using. When someone would use "diet" language or assigning moral value to food, they would correct it. There was this huge poster on the wall that said "Food has nutritional value...not moral value". They had changed the plan so that I wasn't dong the exact same thing as the person beside me. They no longer look at a calorie as being a calorie.....
I remember before getting hacks like "Marshmellow fluff has 1 point" or you can eat an apple or a snack pack of cookies for the same amount of points....it was heavy on the "diet foods" and sugar free products. It was always about how to cheat the system to get more junk food for the least amount of points so you could still have treats and lose weight.
Now they take salt, fat, sugar alcohols, saturated fats, etc into account as well as your personal food preferences to provide me with a point allowance and a list of zero point foods that I can have anytime. For me I chose chicken, seafood and whole grains. I can also eat "as much as I want" of fruits and veggies. The recipes focus on whole real foods. On the other side where a steak may have been less points for me before its much higher now to balance out my zero point lean proteins.
So after tracking the food for a bit, I started to make better choices, and going to the gym more and tracking more water but it didn't feel like a job, it felt intuitive. I would catch myself thinking something negative about a choice and correct myself. I didn't blow up my whole day because I ate bad foods. I just noted how it felt and made a better choice the next time.
The day I realized something was different, i had a really bad period day....it was a very stressful day with work and I ate EVERYTHING...but I gave myself grace and the next day when I felt better I went to the pool and made a different choice. I recognized that yes I had blown my days worth of points and most of my weekly points too but I wasn't mad, I didn't say FUCK IT and drop the whole thing, and I didn't want to either!
While I weigh in each week, its not required, and while we celebrate the scale moving we talk significantly more about non scale victories (like your pants being looser or having more energy or changes in our mindset). We share our ups and downs, our tips and tricks and our lives with each other. Last week one of the women at the meeting said to me, that she had taken my suggestion and it totally changed her week!
I admit freely that I can be super lazy when I am tired and prepping etc is not my best strength. I also recognize that if I don't have things prepped in my fridge I will eat the higher point foods (seriously i just wrote bad foods, noticed it and took it out! LOL) So I always have a chopped salad in my fridge, I always have kale or broccoli slaw to beef up a dish with veggies, I always have chicken or turkey breast in some form in my fridge and I always have the mini vegetables, because I won't cut them! So for me its worth the extra cost to have ready to eat mini cucumbers, snap peas, mini carrots and mini peppers to just fill up a plate!
This week we talked about what movement works for you....is it walking the dog, chair yoga, swimming, dancing, do the steps, parking further away....we talked about "doing the doable"
Okay I am sure that this post sounds like a commercial for WW but it really isn't. But I do want to encourage you to find the thing that works for you to meet your goals. Is this going slowly, sure but something has changed and that is making a difference.
Now here is the part that I don't normally do....here is the low down....This is a comparison photo from day 1 to day 100.
Isn't that wonderful? My mindset has changed, and now I can do the doable and continue to work on being the best healthy and happy me that I can be. No matter what that looks like....no matter what the end number is going to be. I am staring down the barrel of a second surgery and I know that this will not derail me. I will not take my body for granted anymore or punish it because I am sad, scared or hurt.
If you want to follow along with this or any of my artistic pursuits, or even join me at WW...you can find all the links on my linktree here -
https://linktr.ee/TaraDaisy
Have an amazing day my friends!
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