Food For Thought

How disheartening is it when you finally realize that for the whole of your life you have been fighting the battle of the bulge. Ever since I was a young girl growing up in the N.W.T. I have had a problem with weight. I was always the fat one...not terribly obese but enough that one of my nicknames was 'Lotta'. For those who don't know...Big Lotta was a chunky character in a comic book. My parents did nothing to discourage my eating habits as they were of the old school. They grew up without and probably felt that their children were not going to suffer the same fate. I remember as a teenager always feeling self-conscious of those few extra pounds. In retrospect, I suppose I really wasn't really that overweight. I did have my share of dates and a marriage.

I maintained a fairly decent weight until my first child. I gained fify pounds and surpassed a milestone in numbers. I never did loose all that I had gained before my second child rocketed me back to the same place.

So...now we come to the next twenty five years of on and off dieting. A bout with Weight Watchers in which I gave up shortly before reaching my goal, the slow climb up again, dieting again, gaining, and the vicious circle continued. Then the unthinkable.

My lifestyle of overeating gave me Diabetes as a prize. I had to loose weight to help control my blood sugars. I now had a disease in which your every waking thought was about food...what can you eat, what can't you eat, how much, what's taboo...and this was for the rest of my life. I was overwhelmed and upset. Maybe part of the problem was the denial and I ate with no regard to my health. I didn't loose the weight. Ten years ago, stress in my life threw my blood sugar readings all over the map and I lost weight rapidly, reaching my goal finally. Not exactly the way to loose. At that time I had decided this was the end of ever having to diet. Now that I was at my ideal weight I would never again let it run away on me.

Wrong! The weight crept up again...reaching that horrible milestone again. Then comes The Atkins Diet, The South Beach Diet, going to the gym, a combo of all and no results in the weight loose department. So now you have it....my lifetime of struggle which takes me to today.

Ten weeks ago I made another commitment and joined Weight Watchers. This was a proven method in the past and even though I knew the program to do on my own, I knew I needed the accountability of the weekly trip to the scales and the meeting. This time around I know it is probably my last chance at making lasting change. As I get older, it's harder and harder to loose weight and the next time around my skin won't bounce back to a reasonable appearance. So far I have lost a total of twenty pounds and have another fourteen in order to reach my goal. After that will be six weeks of maintenance and then I will become a Lifetime Member. A Lifetime Member gets to go to the meeting FREE as long as they attend once a month and not exceed more than two pounds over goal weight. As an added bonus, my blood sugars are easier to keep in the normal range and I have reduced the amount of insulin I inject by half.

I feel happy, positive that I am not only doing this for the reflection in the mirror but for my health and well being. Sometimes I wonder if this time around will be any different.
In my heart of hearts...I know it will.