If I let it the scale controls everything I do... let's be real, this is not the first time in my life I've been fat (shocker...haha).. I went to weight watchers when my son was 6 months old and dropped 50 pounds to become a life time member in about 8 months, accountability and going through a divorce helped that weight loss and plus being in my 20's didn't hurt a thing..it literally just fell off with a few very simple changes.
Next was in my mid-thirties.. my hubby (then boyfriend) moved in and brought some very unhealthy eating/cooking habits with him and I gained 20 pounds overnight it felt like... add living on steroids and pain meds due to degenerative disc disease and excessive amounts of crazy in our life with 6 kids and exes to deal with and before I knew it there was 35 pounds to lose... I discovered acupuncture for the disc disease and haven't taken steroids or a single pain pill since, gave up the desk job and went back to waiting tables and it fell off again.. took a little longer but you get the idea...
At 42 I was still wearing a bikini and was pretty proud of it.... then I quit my job to take care of Madilyn's needs and the movement stopped, eating to stuff my depression became the norm... coupled with a doctor telling me that I lived with so much stress that my metabolism was non-existent and I took it as a license to be fat forever. I was back up into the high 180's that seemed to be my breaking point every other time.... too bad Madilyn got super sick last fall and I quit taking my anti-depressants and weight loss meds... BOOM... 20 more pounds..
Last February I stood on the scale and sat on the floor and cried when I saw 204.2 lbs... That's what I weighed when my son way born... the heaviest I had ever been... no pregnancy to blame this time and that's when I started this journey for real. I felt like every odd was stacked totally against me and I stood on that damn scale 6 times a day hoping it was wrong... maybe if I changed the batteries it would read something different? It's kind of fucked up the head games you can play with yourself sometimes to justify somethings in life.
I hit my treadmill like a crazy lady, cut out white flour and pasta and stopped standing on the damn scale.... I felt great and dropped a bunch of belly bloat quickly... then I got the scale back out and it hadn't moved more than a pound... talk about depressing... next was fitbody bootcamp... LOVED IT! The workouts got me going but over time I lost the motivation to go... I was really struggling with the eating portion of it... the two things I did take away from it were my love of working out and the knowledge of NSV's (non-scale victories)... I told B the story of my favorite jeans when I had my first sit down session with him and how those jeans were in a basket in my closet and "the shirt"... the one my sister-in-law bought me 2 years prior and all I could do was get it over my head.(The shirt is on by the way, a little too fitted for comfort but it's on!) . He told me to put them out in plain view where I get to look at them every single day... and to take pictures of me trying them on..... OH BOY! Talk about a reality check! They hang on my closet door so they are the first thing I see every single morning.... and I'm going to share this...
These jeans are a size 10... I couldn't even button a size 16 much less breath in it when I took these pictures. These were taken in April and I was super depressed after I took them but kept going. I lost 12 pounds while going to bootcamp and managed to keep 9 of it off even over the summer but I felt myself slipping.
I do my workouts at home now with BOD (Beachbody on Demand)... I follow containers for eating 4-5 out of 7 days of the week to help control my portions and make healthier choices but that damn scale still haunts me.... I swear I've lost every 2-3 pounds twice because I have to play this stupid little head game with myself and see what I can "get away with" before I gain it back... that damn scale that has no personality at all could dictate my mood and my choices for the day... so I had my husband hide it!
Last time I stood on it was just over a week ago and it said 186.1..... I'm back where I was when I thought I was fat the previous 2 times in my life... hahahahaha... how ironic is that? I'm focusing more on my meal planning and the way I feel instead of giving the control to the damn scale. I will have him take it out once or twice a month so I can check in but otherwise it's staying in hiding...
Instead I will try on the dang jeans....
Because regardless of what a scale says the proof is in the picture...(disclosure: that is the teenage girls room... hahaha... only one with a full length mirror... Sorry Shyanne).... I have a ways to go but my ass is in them instead of hanging over!
I could probably plow through the weight loss because now I know what I am doing but it's about making life changes for me not just losing the weight... I want to lose it and leave it there, not regain it because what I did wasn't sustainable for me. I want to enjoy the dinner dates and drinks with my husband because we finally get to do that again. I don't want to spend my life saying "I can't eat that"... because I can... I'm learning, I'm finding myself, I'm making time for myself and I'm happy... super happy actually that the damn belly button ring may reveal it's next summer when I'm rockin a bikini just shy of 47 years old... 😊
