Off the Wagon; In the Dirt (P3, D13)

Last time I checked in here, all was well. I handled the trip to Michigan pretty well, I was maintaining my weight pretty easily, and I was feeling pretty good about this whole maintenance thing. I was being careful, I was trying not to get cocky.

Reality check time. I hate even posting here; I want to wait until I have it back under control and then come back and post the big lesson I've learned with the proof that I've learned it. But I'm trying to remind myself that part of the learning is happening through my writing, weird as that may seem, and it helps to write what's happening now, especially if I don't have it all back under control yet.

On the 23rd, we had an annual thing we do with my family where we rent a van, take the kids to see Santa, all go to dinner, drive around the city looking at the Christmas lights, and finally go get ice cream. I totally stayed within my maximum calories for the day and I ate very, very carefully, including having something off the gluten-free menu at the Thai place where we had dinner, even though what I really wanted was noodles. The other thing I deserve a fucking medal for us not drinking my way through dinner. My divorced parents hanging out and making nice while my kids drive everyone nutso is kind of a stressful situation for me. But I really wanted to get some ice cream at this delicious gelato place we were going later, and I felt like I should be responsible and only have one treat. So no noodles, no booze, only ice cream.

The next morning I was over 200 and more than two pounds over my last HCG weight. And it was Christmas Eve. When I started maintenance, I swore I would take the two pound thing very seriously, not because I think there is something magical about being over by two pounds, but because I think it's a good way not to let anything spiral out of control (hint: FORESHADOWING).

So here it is, Christmas Eve, and technically, I should do a steak day (eat nothing all day, then have a lean steak and an apple for dinner; drink lots of water all day). But I start to think, and I think to myself, "you know, I am about to get my period any day now. So considering I really didn't overeat and I'm about to get my period, that probably isn't real weight. I'll eat carefully today and see what happens." I ate carefully for most of the day. Two eggs for breakfast, nice salad for lunch. But the inlaws arrived with homemade chex mix, and even though I am definitely staying away from processed carbs, I convinced myself you only get homemade chex mix once a year! It can't hurt to have a handful, and another, and another.

Christmas Eve dinner (which we hosted because I start to feel guilty about all my relatives not having anything else to do on Christmas Eve and just sitting there, sad and lonely) was actually ridiculously healthy. Pork tenderloin, salad, green beans almondine, roasted root vegetables... but then I had two sugar cookies AND a very small piece of chocolate pie after dessert. 

I wasn't keeping track of calories, which is a bad sign. But I bet I ate in the range of 1800 calories yesterday, it was just that I ate a lot of sugar and processed food, which makes you retain water. And I ate a lot of carb calories which converts to fat faster than protein calories. 

Christmas morning dawned and I was 202.8!! I weighed myself in horror, disgusted that I was up 4.6 pounds, disgusted that I was weighing myself repeatedly, trying to get a lower number like someone who has totally lost touch with reality, disgusted that I was weighing myself on CHRISTMAS MORNING while my kids were running around excitedly and wanting to open presents, and most of all, disgusted with myself that I was going to let a measly four pounds determine my mood on Christmas. Let my dysfunctional family determine my mood, but not a measly four pounds which was probably mostly water weight and hormonal fluctuations.

Still, even though it was Christmas, I didn't want things to get out of control, so I resolved to do a steak day. And literally 10 minutes into the day, I ate a muffin my mother-in-law had made, which was very healthy but chock full of white flour. It almost feels like THAT was the decision that was the critical decision of the day: deciding that the first thing I put in my mouth was going to be something that my brain was telling me not to eat.

I was off and running. I did not count calories yesterday, but here is a partial inventory: peanut M&Ms from my stocking (before 9 a.m.) hazelnut and cashew brittle that my brother and sister in law made (before 10 a.m.), a homemade sticky bun from the delicious batch my dad brought, half a waffle with maple syrup, scrambled eggs, a huge salad with leftover pork (my rational brain surfaced for a few minutes to make me eat something healthy), 2 or 3 sugar cookies, a small glass of chocolate wine (don't ask), a handful of blue corn tortilla chips, a handful of sea salt pita chips...I can't even remember everything. It was, like, a really bad binge day. And the thing was, I felt BAD. I felt tired and lethargic...I kept telling myself it was staying up late wrapping presents, but I think it was the sugar. And I would berate myself for ruining all my hard "detox" work by just stuffing myself with sugar and processed carbs, and then I would tell myself I might as well make a day of it since I had already fucked up so bad. It was weird. I just calmly, totally willingly and knowingly, sabotaged my diet all day long. All day. I don't know how many calories I ate, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was 2500-3000. Easily.

This morning I was 203.2, a full 5 pounds above my last HCG weight. OMFG. Shoot me now.

Day 1	12/14/2010	198.2	967.0
Day 2	12/15/2010	198.6	1437.0
Day 3	12/16/2010	198.4	1460.0
Day 4	12/17/2010	197.0	2207.0
Day 5	12/18/2010	198.4	1708.0
Day 6	12/19/2010	199.2	1697.0
Day 7	12/20/2010	198.8	2144.0
Day 8	12/21/2010	-	1914.0
Day 9	12/22/2010	199.0	2288.0
Day 10	12/23/2010	199.6	2115.0
Day 11	12/24/2010	200.6	-
Day 12	12/25/2010	202.8	-
Day 13	12/26/2010	203.2	798.0

Now. Here's the part where I tell myself what I would say if it was my dear and special friend that had fucked up like this. I would say, "It was the holidays, which has stressed you out like mad for the last 15 years. You are still new at maintenance, and you are learning. Part of learning is fucking up. You're about to go on your period, which certainly makes the carb cravings worse. You were hosting all sorts of people in your house for two days in various combinations that don't get along and that cause painful memories while also bringing out your anxiety-fueled puppetmaster capabilities to full effect. Everyone was bringing delicious food into your home during a time when your defenses were not as strong as they could be. You've been stressed, you haven't been sleeping, you haven't been drinking enough water. Probably two pounds of that is real weight gain and the other three is water weight."

That is what I would say to my friend. And I would be right. Look, I've said from Day 1 that I have my doubts about how this diet is going to teach me anything about food that would help me maintain a lower weight for a long time. But if I have any chance of succeeding long term, I have got to allow myself to fuck up, and I've got to get back on the wagon. A nutritionist told me once that it was the only difference she saw between successful and unsuccessful clients: the ability not to let a fuck up sabotage efforts in a permanent way. She said everyone could be a good dieter. Everyone could follow a plan when given a plan if they wanted to. Also, every single person following a behavior modification plan will fall off the wagon eventually. But the difference between people who gained it back and people who kept it off was the ability to get right back up on the horse. In order to maintain a weight loss, you couldn't just be good at losing weight; you had to get really good at fucking up.

Today has been a struggle. All day I have wanted to say "fuck it." All day, I have had a tape running in my head that goes something like this, "Well, you and everyone else thought this was too good to be true, and now you've gained five pounds in as many days, clearly fucking up any chances you have. So go ahead and have the pita chips, the M&Ms, the leftover sticky buns. You might as well." But I ate only veggies and protein today to try to get my blood sugar and carb cravings a little more under control. I hope I'll be down a little tomorrow, but probably not back under 200 for a couple of days. I think it's the wrong approach to try and drastically cut calories like I did today. I think the right approach is to eat on the low-end of my target (about 1800) for a few days and see if my body settles back to just under 200. So that's my plan.

God. I'm so mad at myself. This is so annoying!

This is such a weird thing. I have to care about this enough to maintain my commitment and be somewhat vigilant, at least for now, but I can't care about it so much that I let 5 pounds determine my mood and my value as a person. How do I strike that balance? And am I going to be a person who just can't ever eat sugar without spiraling into a binge? Or am I going to be forever spiraling into occasional binges and then adjusting for the next few days? I mean, what am I shooting for here? HOW CAN I BE PERFECT IF I DON'T KNOW WHAT PERFECT IS?

Ahem.

So I'm 13 days into a 42-day maintenance and freaking out about not having mastered all the things I'm supposed to master. It's like the few times I've meditated, when, three minutes into the session, my brain is racing and I'm thinking, "ARE YOU CALM YET? I DON'T THINK YOU'RE CALM. You SUCK at meditation!"

So meditation takes practice, eating healthy takes practice, getting back on the wagon takes practice. Fine, fine. I keep reminding myself that I may be up 5 pounds, but if I'd never done this diet, I would have still gained 5 pounds and would be well over 230 by now.

I'm going to try not to be crazy and neurotic and obsessive over the next few days while also taking this seriously and trying to get myself under control again. Methinks it is a hard balance. I'll check in in a couple of days and let you know how things are going. 

Merry fucking Christmas!

On Intimacy and Trust (P2, D15)

Good loss yesterday, very small gain today, but it's all evening out to just over a pound per day, so it's okay. It's a little bit of a bummer that I lost almost 14 pounds in the first week and it's taken me another whole week to lose another 3.6, but it is what it is. I'll report my weight and weight loss today and then get on to what I'm thinking about today. 

Day	Date	Weight	Daily Change	Total Loss
Day 1	11/1/2010	229.6	n/a	n/a
Day 2	11/2/2010	225.6	-4.0	-4
Day 3	11/3/2010	221.6	-4.0	-8
Day 4	11/4/2010	218.6	-3.0	-11
Day 5	11/5/2010	218.6	0.0	-11
Day 6	11/6/2010	216.4	-2.2	-13.2
Day 7	11/7/2010	215.8	-0.6	-13.8
Week 1 summary: down 13.8#
Day 8	11/8/2010	214.8	-1.0	-14.8
Day 9	11/9/2010	215.4	0.6	-14.2
Day 10	11/10/2010	213.8	-1.6	-15.8
Day 11	11/11/2010	213.6	-0.2	-16
Day 12	11/12/2010	215	1.4	14.6
Day 13	11/13/2010	213	-2.0	-16.6
Day 14	11/14/2010	212.2	-0.8	-17.4
Week 2 summary: down 3.6 # this week; 17.4# total

Today's topic: on sharing one's navelgazing with unsuspecting friends and family.

I have not shared this blog with many of my "in real life" friends or family. I have worked out a pretty good system in the last 10 or 15 years of life where I give the illusion of intimacy with friends by being willing and open to talk about the facts of my life without giving much away about what really moves me, for good or for bad. In high school, my friends called me the ice queen (I was actually very proud of that title; I thought it was bad ass) because I kept all my cards very close to the chest. I think I have remedied that, but not always in a truly meaningful way.

Having postpartum depression twice cured me of some of my hesitance to let people in. The first time, I was very isolated (geographically, and with a few exceptions, socially); the second time, I let people in and I let people take care of me, and it was a transformative experience. It was very scary to show people that dark, black side of me, but I did it. And not only did people not like me less, they seemed to like me more. Letting people help me through the postpartum period took several friendships to a whole new level.

But the food stuff, the binge eating, the overeating is all still a secret from almost everyone I know. It's funny, I always thought the thing I would want to keep secret is the fact that I'm doing this crazy fucking diet, but what I really want to keep secret is what got me here. 

So here's what has me thinking about the subjects of intimacy and trust this week.

1. My best friend from middle school (commenting on this blog as Kristoise) is the scientist who helped me research this diet. She knows I've struggled with weight and self esteem my whole life. She knows what I look like. She knows I was considering this diet out of desperation. We have been friends for (OMG, I can't even believe it's been this long) almost TWENTY years. But I still didn't want her to read this blog because I didn't want her to know "my number" and I've never shared with her the true depths of misery this food/weight stuff has caused me in my life. She struggles with body image like just about every woman on the planet, so she gets it to some degree, but she doesn't get the shame part.

When I finally decided to share this blog with her and she read this post , she wrote to me "I never knew about any of the binge eating, and then I think what a horrible best friend I must have been to not have known." See, that's fucked up. It is ME that never shared this kind of thing with my oldest best friend who knows just about everything about me. If she doesn't know, that's on me, not on her. It is me that is the bad friend for not letting her in on this sooner, considering it is a major, major part of my life.

2. My friend Z is someone I adore and have been building a strong friendship with for some time. She is very sane and clear-headed . . . no drama. I have joked to her that I need some level of drama and revelation of inner turmoil to feel like I really "know" someone. I am only half kidding. I have been waiting for her to make some big reveal that will take the level of intimacy in our relationship to the next level. Then it occurred to me that I could provide it. I told her about this diet last week and gave her the tiniest insight into my historical struggles, but I did it in a way that felt very scary and vulnerable.

She doesn't think the diet is a great idea on it's surface and was honest about that, but as she has seen that I am still feeling strong and healthy and am not wasting away like a cancer patient, she has become more supportive of ME, if not more supportive of the diet. I told her, she (sort of) disapproved, and you know what? We are still friends. She still likes me, even knowing I am someone who has to resort to crazy diets to control crazy behavior. And I still like her, even though she was honest with me about not loving this plan. Our friendship survived some serious vulnerability and getting real.

3. My friend G was over at my house for lunch the other day, and noticed that I was eating plain chicken and spinach instead of the delicious turkey, brie, and cranberry sandwich (mmmm, so delicious) I had bought for her and our friend K to split. I really did not plan to tell G or K about this plan, but decided on a whim that I would open up about it to them, two tender, gentle, loving, and hilarious midwives in training who would surely not give me shit for doing what most people (including possibly me) consider to be a fad diet. But I definitely emphasized the detox/cleanse aspect of the diet rather than the weight loss aspect. It feels safe to say I want to detox and eat healthier, it feels scary to say I need to lose 60 pounds to two people who don't need to lose a single ounce. 

We talked about it awhile, they shared some of their own stories, and G mentioned gently that she'd never seen me eat unhealthy or drink too much or overindulge in any way and she'd always seen me eat as healthy as I was that day (skinless, boneless chicken, raw spinach, and an orange). She talked about the difference in body type and metabolism as the reason, but the real reason is that I fucking eat like shit and can eat a whole sleeve of cookies at 10:00 at night without even thinking about it. Some days, I will go to 7-11 in the morning on the way home from preschool drop off and buy 4 candy bars and eat all 4 in one day.

G has never seen me do it (despite a fair amount of time spent together), and she doesn't know I do it, because I'm too ashamed and I keep it all a secret. But G is an awesome and amazing woman that I feel so, so drawn to. And while I'm sure she doesn't need or want an hourly report about how many candy bars I've eaten, it seems like if we are going to be really, really close friends, which I would like to be, she should know what my deepest, darkest struggles are.

4. I adore my mother-in-law. She is really an amazing woman. She is also a Weight Watchers leader and a big believer in the WW program--she lost something like 60 or 70 pounds on it more than 10 years ago and has kept it off. And this woman did not go from fat to normal. She went all the way to thin and fit and has stayed that way all these years. She's probably a 4-6 at age 58! She and I talked about the HCG diet last summer and agreed that it was a terrible idea--too low in calories, too low in nutrients, faddish in its "gimmick" for success, and guaranteed to cause a huge regain once the diet is over. I agreed with her. I was training for a triathlon at the time and felt like I had things under control, even if I wasn't anywhere near the weight I wanted to be.

But then I got hurt, fell into desperation about my weight for the 456th time in my life, changed my mind, and decided I had nothing to lose. But I haven't told her I actually started this diet we both agreed last summer is a terrible idea. I'm afraid she'll be mad, I'm afraid she'll disapprove, and I'm afraid she'll be disappointed in me for not being able to achieve long-term success on Weight Watchers which anyone in the world would agree is a healthier and superior way to lose weight than 500 calories a day combined with a homeopathic remedy. These fears are not based on her actions in any way, they are based on MY crazy brain. I love my MIL and want to really know her, and I want her to really know me. I guess that means I should send her this blog, right? The thought is terrifying.

5. Another dear friend of mine, M, has been confiding in me about her painful struggles with infertility. She and her husband have been trying for something like a year and a half to have their second child, and are just coming up against obstacle after obstacle. For a long time, she went through the pain and frustration without telling anyone. But I was one of the first people she talked to about it. Now she's opened up to a few more, but it is still very, very private for her and her husband, who I am also close to. M and I have been getting closer and closer, and it was such a huge honor to me that she is sharing this part of her life with me.

Last week, we were riding somewhere together, and she asked me what was new. I was thinking, "only that I'm on a crazy new diet and have lost 13 pounds and feel like my entire worldview is transforming!" What I actually said was "nothing."

M is very thin, very in touch with her body, and has a very healthy relationship with food. She doesn't even begin to understand the drive to binge eat, the way it feels to sit in a chair that is too narrow, or the way it feels to walk into a room when you're the biggest one there. But you know what she does understand? Feeling like there is something everyone else can do that you can't do. She understands feeling broken, she understands feeling jealous, she understands the feeling of having a problem that no one can fix, no matter what you try. She has bared her soul to me. She has cried to me and told me things no one else knows. Who the fuck am I to keep my stupid diet and weight problems a secret from her? It is almost an insult to her because it implies that my struggles are more secret, more painful, more damaging than hers, which is total horseshit.

So I told her. And I did it because I love her and she trusted me, and I owe her that trust and intimacy in return. Our friendship can only go so far without my willingness to share the scary, black shit in my head and heart with as much freedom and care as she shares hers.

So that's what I'm thinking about today. They all know about the diet except my MIL; the next logical step would be for me to share this blog with those people. My brain immediately starts to say "they aren't interested in this level of minutia, they'll think I'm a totally self-obsessed navel gazer, blah blah blah." But here's the truth. I may not be interested in alcoholism or spousal abuse or anorexia. But if I loved someone who was going through it, I would want to know, because I would need to know it to really understand them. So everytime I try to talk myself out of sharing this stuff using the excuse that no one cares about this but me, I have to kind of call bullshit on myself for that.

But, look, here's the truth of it. These are secrets I have kept from almost everyone MY WHOLE LIFE. It's feeling good and brave and safe to stretch and share with these people and a few others (my husband, my mom, my brother, another friend who really gets it, and a group of women in my hometown who are also doing this HCG thing under the same guidance as I am). I don't think they think less of me. I don't know they they all recognize what a big deal it is that I'm sharing it, but maybe it would help if I sent them an ecard that said "the fact that I share my dull, boring neuroses with you is a sign of how much I love you!"

Anyway, enough on this topic today. That's what I'm thinking about. Stay tuned to see if I can continue to stretch this "sharing" muscle or if it's done stretched as far as it goes. You will be able to tell if you ever see more than 3 people ever leaving comments. :)

You want to know what's really hilarious? I am so terrified at the idea of even contemplating the vulnerability involved in sending this link to anyone other than the 3 or 4 safe people who already have it, that I really want to go eat a huge ice cream sundae to calm myself down. Yeah, that would be productive.

Phase 2, Day 5 (P2, D5)

I am questioning the precision and accuracy of my scale. My first weigh-in today was 218.6, same as yesterday. That surprised me a bit, not because I'm greedy and unhappy with what I've lost, but just because I continue to be letter perfect and wouldn't have expected a stall so soon, even after pretty quick weight loss.

So I weighed myself again and got 219.4, then 217.2, then 219.8, then 218.4, etc. All within about a three-pound range. K pointed out that basically I need to look at this scale as if it has a 2 pound margin of error. It seems to be directionally accurate (a phrase statisticians loathe) but not precise. That's going to make it hard to identify when I have specific slip ups or mistakes that cause a weight gain.

So what I might do is start weighing myself once a week at the gym, because they have a doctor's scale. It's a pain to do it every day because I would have to go first thing in the morning, which is already crazy enough with getting kids ready for school, carpools, getting ready for work, etc. But once a week I can manage, and it will give me a bigger picture sense of what's happening.

Day	Date	Weight	Daily Change	Total Loss
Day 1	11/1/2010	229.6	n/a	n/a
Day 2	11/2/2010	225.6	-4	-4
Day 3	11/3/2010	221.6	-4	-8
Day 4	11/4/2010	218.6	-3	-11
Day 5	11/5/2010	218.6	0	-11

I am happy to report on day 5 that the hunger is getting marginally better, or maybe I'm just getting more used to it. I have been feeling famished by mid-morning and have usually been eating an apple in the morning instead of with my lunch because I just don't feel like I can wait.

Today, I definitely felt hungry all day, but also got caught up on the phone and didn't eat anything at all until 1:30. I felt like I was starving, but apparently not so starving that I managed to eat at noon like I have been doing. So that seems like it's improving somewhat.

Random observations:

1) Food definitely has more flavor. Eating even very simple foods has been satisfying flavor-wise for me. I haven't been doing recipes, mostly just simply seasoned pan-grilled meat over whatever veggie I'm having. It actually all tastes really good to me.

2) I'm foregoing the stevia for the time being, even though it is allowed. Part of this diet for me is about resetting my brain and my attitude, and I think I need to get away from the intense sugar cravings. I had some stevia in my herbal tea the first day, and it was ok, but it's okay without it too. I may fold on this eventually, but for now, no stevia.

3) I have serious humiliation at my "number," aka, my weight. I have a lot of skinny friends who I trust to be gentle with me if I share this blog with them or the fact that I am doing this diet. But I am horrified at the idea of a friend who thinks 150 pounds on her own body is fat seeing that I top the scales at 218 AFTER I've lost 11 pounds. It's just mortifying to think about. I cringe even though I know in my head that 1) they won't judge me 2) no one cares about this as much as I do and 3) anyone who does care about it can probably figure out what I weigh within 10 pounds or so ANYWAY. It's just that for women, that 200 mark is such a source of shame. Women are not supposed to weigh more than 200 pounds, period.

Hey, here's a free tip. If you are fat, don't spend a lot of timing looking at heights and weights of NFL players. There are too many male, professional athletes my height (5'9") that weigh in the 180-195 range. Ugh. Even Serena Williams who is a strong, powerful, BUILT, and hardly slender woman is 5'10" and 185.

My friend K had a brilliant suggestion. She said I should measure my weight in a unit that has no meaning or baggage for me, like kilos or stones (inspired by Bridget Jones' diary). So if it gives me heart palpitations to say that I weigh 218 pounds, I could also just say I weigh 15.5 stones or 98.9 kilos. So I weigh 15.5 stones today and 15.3 stones tomorrow. Nobody knows that that's as much as a professional baseball player weighs. It's just a number. Yes, I think that does feel much better.

4) R (my husband) is getting more and more supportive every day. He was really not happy about this diet at first, but is coming along.

5) I still feel shy about telling people what I'm doing. It just seems so crazy and irresponsible to take a homeopathic form of a female hormone and combine it with a starvation diet to lose weight. It just seems impossible that I will be able to keep it off long term. I will write more in an upcoming post about why this appeals to me so much even though it is so extreme.

6) I have felt really good this week, despite feeling intense hunger at times. Today is the first day I don't feel super energetic and happy and upbeat. I wonder if that's because I didn't lose today, so I feel less excited or if the low-cal thing is just catching up with me. I have done yoga twice this week and taken a short walk; my goal next week will be to pay more attention to exercise.

7) I'm going to another party tonight. My plan is to bring my own food and tell people I'm on a detox diet. Tomorrow night is date night with R. We're going to have to figure out something that doesn't involve dinner!

This is Why I'm Doing This

Okay. Deep breath. Here goes. The information I have never told anyone.

I am 5’9” and I weighed in at 228.2 pounds this morning (before my two gorge days). My BMI is 34.

That wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Much easier when it's anonymous.

According to Weight Watchers, this means my ideal weight should be between 135 and 169. If I take even the upper limit of my weight range, that means I have 59 pounds to lose. The bottom range seems patently absurd for a woman in her mid-thirties who has had two children, but what do I know?

The Sob Story 

I was a normal-weight kid who always felt fat. I was an early bloomer, meaning I was getting boobs in 4^th and 5^th grade, and by 8^th grade, I was a 36C with an hourglass figure. This did not make me feel sexy and powerful, it made me feet fat and ugly and weird. I bought my first pair of control top pantyhose in the 6^th grade and thought it was the best invention ever.

I was a size 12/14 through most of high school—not skinny, but not really fat for a tall girl. But I felt fat. Any time the boy I liked didn’t like me back, I was sure it was because of my weight. It never once crossed my mind that it could be anything else.

I started binge eating in earnest in high school because I made my own money and could spend it on food. I stole food when I babysat and hid the candy wrappers in the trash. Our next-door neighbor used to buy the huge, Costco-sized boxes of mini Peppermint Patties, and I could eat 20 or 30 in a sitting. I would eat alone, feeling disgust and shame almost the whole time.

I started the Slim Fast plan, but it gave me the runs. I tried jogging, but I had asthma, a part-time job, and all honors/AP classes. It was easy to let myself off the hook.

I lost weight my freshman year of college because I was depressed and ate only strawberry popsicles in the dining hall. I got down to probably 150-155 at my lowest. I would go a day or more without eating until I felt so sick I could only stomach a few sips of juice. I was secretly proud of my resolve, and I loved it when people (my mother, my friends) would yell at me to eat more. I felt I was finally a success. But I didn't really feel any thinner or smaller.

My sophomore year, some Bad Shit happened that began a long and steady weight gain. I would skip meals in the dining hall all together and eat a whole bag of Rolos for lunch and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s for dinner. I ate sweets until I felt nauseous almost every day. I always hid the evidence by burying the wrappers deep in the trash can.

I got fatter and fatter and hardly noticed. I was young, and so the fat was nice and plump—no stretch marks, no striations, not too many unseemly rolls. My boyfriend seemed to like me the way I was. It’s not that I didn’t feel fat; I did. But then I always felt fat, ever since fourth grade. It was just that I didn’t feel any fatter than I ever had before, even though I was. I've always been so out of touch with my body that I could never tell weight gain or loss except by the scale--isn't that screwed up? So if I'm not weighing myself, I can easily be in uneasy denial.

After graduating from college, I went on a three-month road trip with some college friends. My boyfriend’s mother bought me Lane Bryant clothes for the vacation, and I was mortified that she thought I needed them. I thought it was some passive-aggressive dig at me.  I went on the vacation and wore the size 18 shirts and shorts she had bought me, truly believing it was some kind of fluke that they actually fit me.

When I got the pictures back, I was horrified. There was no denying that I was officially, undeniably Fat.

That Fall, just before Thanksgiving, I started Weight Watchers. I weighed in at 231 pounds and was an 18/20.

Over the next year, I lost 50 pounds, and stabilized at around 180-190 for 2-3 years. It didn’t feel terribly difficult to maintain in terms of self-denial or hunger, but I thought about food all the time and still couldn’t get to my officially sanctioned WW goal weight of 169.

I quick smoking and gained 15 pounds, then lost it again.

I finally got treated for anxiety and depression (therapy and Wellbutrin), and was able to beg, borrow, and steal my way down to 170 just in time to get married. At the time, I felt I still had a ways to go; I was not satisfied. But when I look at my wedding pictures, I see a healthy, attractive woman who is at a perfectly reasonable weight.

But 170 never felt like a maintainable weight for me, and I gained 10 pounds on my honeymoon. Again, I stayed at around 180-190 for half a year until I got pregnant the first time. Although the first pregnancy ended in miscarriage at 9 weeks, I had already gained 15 pounds from eating every carbohydrate in sight to help relieve my nausea. I got pregnant again right away and gained 60 pounds. I was 260 pounds when I went in to deliver my daughter.

Thirty pounds came off right after delivery, but I was knocked over with postpartum depression, and the Zoloft I begrudgingly started taking caused me to put 20 back on. I hovered around 240-250 for the first two years of my daughter’s life. I switched meds, started working out, got down to 221 . . . and got pregnant again unexpectedly. The second baby was a wonderful surprise gift but set me way back on my path to healthy eating and weight loss.

I know no one really cares about these vicissitudes in weight but me. I guess I’m sharing them partially because I am drunk with power (I’ve never shared my weight with anyone before) and partially to show how much this has been a daily struggle and a daily effort since puberty. For all the people who say "why don't you just eat less and exercise more," I guess I want you to know I've tried that. I promise I've tried.

Just before my second child turned two, I trained for my first 5k and got stress fractures in my shins and a heel spur. I spent six months healing from that and then started Jillian Michael’s aggressive exercise plan. Over the last 15 months, I lost 18 pounds with intense, intense effort. After I hurt my ankle, I kept it off easily for three months and then put on 8 pounds in two weeks.

So here I am. I’m almost 35. I am 5’9” and weigh 228, as much as many professional football players. Last week in my office, someone was describing a huge, giant, bear of a man. “You don’t get it,” this colleague told me, stretching their arms out to indicate incredible girth. “This guy is, like, 6’2” and 240 pounds. He’s a beast.”

I guess that makes me 12 pounds shy of beastliness.

On a regular basis, my husband describes the amazing and unbelievable weight of this or that athlete. He spouts off these statistics with ease and awe, and I am always secretly comparing their weight to mine in my mind. I can’t even ask him to stop or tell him that it humiliates me, because I don't want him to know how much I weigh. What would I say? It is oddly comforting that people feel so comfortable marveling at 200lb+ weights in front of me; it means they don’t think it could possibly apply to me. Maybe I have people fooled that I am only a little fat, when in fact, I am a beast. Sorry, I mean 12 pounds shy of being a beast.

I’m so tired of it. I am just plain tired. I truly feel like I have tried the conventional ways. I have. I have given this the old college try. I feel completely desperate, almost desperate enough to try anything. I am well aware that I have brought this on myself.

I don’t think this diet is for someone who hasn’t struggled for awhile. I don’t think this diet is for someone who wants to lose 10 pounds. I don't think this diet is for people who haven't tried the other healthy, reasonable eating plans. And I don’t think this diet is an ideal eating plan in ideal conditions. I think that it is lovely and responsible to eat less and exercise more and safely lose a pound a week until you reach your goal weight.

I would do it that way if I could.