Although they are similar, maintaining a weight loss requires a different skill set than losing it.  Or perhaps a different mindset.  It’s just different, okay?

Why do people who have been successful at weight loss regain it?  Getting to the goal weight is the first process.  It’s exciting, it’s fun, it’s clear.  People tell you how great you look.  You feel great.  Carrying 200 extra pounds definitely does not feel good, at least in my experience.  So when the extra starts to drop off, your body feels better.  I found a journal entry where I had gone from 379 to 359 and I was already talking about how much better I felt because just that 20 pounds made a difference.

During the weight loss process, you will probably avoid or severely restrict alcohol, sweets, fast food, all those things that put the weight on.  It’s okay.  You can give them up.  You have a purpose.  You have a plan.  You have success.

Then you reach your goal, or close enough that the difference is insignificant.  My original goal was 160.  I think my lowest weight was 162.  My real goal was achieved.  I changed from morbidly obese to “normal.”  I shop in the misses section.  I can fit in the spaces an adult female is presumed to be able to fit in.  Last night a man gave me his jacket.  It fit.

Perhaps you can spot one post loss issue already.  I can’t help but contrast the life before and after.  I carry that fat person in my head still.  And please remember, I’m not talking about an extra 20 or even 50 pounds.  I’m talking about 200 excess pounds, pressing on my body, affecting my health and my life for years.

I know I still carry her around because when I try on clothes, I still sit gingerly on the bench in the dressing room as though it might break from the wall.  It’s automatic from the days when I would look at that little triangle and that tiny strip of glue and think, ‘How much weight will that thing hold?’  Am I complaining?  No way!  I am describing.

Life here is great.  Way more clothes to choose from.  Way more places I can fit and way more things I can do as a consequence.  And, frankly, it hurt my feelings  when some random stranger would talk trash about me because I was big.  I know, sticks and stones and all that, but in my heart of hearts I prefer acceptance to rejection and I can’t just pretend it doesn’t matter at all because the truth is, it does.  If that makes me shallow, so be it.

Besides those things, health is the primary consideration.  Feeling fit is an awesome feeling and not one I want to give up.  Since the weight loss, I have gone as high as 194.  The thing is, I have weighed myself every day since the beginning of April.  This morning I was within 5 pounds of that starting weight.  It’s on the wrong side of it, but I am also safely away from 194, a number uncomfortably close to 200.

Weight loss is exciting.  Maintenance happens when you realize you are going to be monitoring to one degree or another for the rest of your life.  But you did your time.  You want a cheeseburger or a beer.  You want a cocktail and a piece of cake at the party.  You don’t want to say no to all that for the rest of your life.

I like to drink sometimes, but I also like my new life.  I am still finding the balance between old habits and making sure I don’t slip too far back.  Perhaps, eventually, I will decide that some things I thought I liked aren’t as important to me as I thought.  Only time will tell.

In the meantime, I will continue to monitor day by day.  Deciding with each new situation the choice I will make.  Trung gave me the tools I need to stay at the size I want to be.  Now it is up to me to decide what size that is and what I am willing to do to be there.

Ultimately, I guess I would say, weight loss is clear and maintenance is an exploration.  I need to give a nod to Amy, a PE teacher, here because, although she never had a weight problem, she gets this concept and is always willing to talk about it.  She is a good role model, not rigid, but healthy.  I think as long as I keep good health in the forefront, I will end up making the right decisions in the long run.  Like I said, I like it better here.  That’s still worth making changes when necessary.

 

Thursday: Today I did a six mile run at the shoreline.  The wind was fierce and I was very slow.  On the plus side I wasn’t noticeably tired and didn’t have that feeling of struggling just to lift my legs.  It seems to be a rule that no matter how short or long the run I can’t wait to be finished with it.  But there’s another side to the run too.  There’s that thought, ‘Oh wow I’m running.’ The feeling of being free, of being a beast; that feeling of being alive.  Alive and able to run.  Cool.

I am the worst kind of procrastinator.  I was writing about the week’s workouts and then life got in the way and I trailed off.  I went to Trung Friday and I ran my long run Saturday, but the details have vanished from my memory bank.

The week’s blend into each other because they are similar.  I will work with Trung three days per week and I will run three days.  This week I only had two runs because I’m resting for my 10 mile run next week, building back up to half marathon distance again.

The thing I keep trying to figure out is how this habit was ingrained in me because there are some other, better habits I would like to build into my life.  Going for donuts every Sunday is not a great habit to get into.  Stretching regularly would be nice.  If I could solve the mystery of the way Trung trained me to log my food and work out regularly I could rule the world.  Haha, not really, but I could help other people build those same positive habits.

I fear that ultimately the desire must come from within.  I saw myself losing my mobility and I feared the future.  Since I must die one way or the other I prefer to go out in a blaze of glory and not by fading ignominiously away, needing someone to take care of me because I can’t do it myself.  At least I don’t want to end up in that condition because I couldn’t stop eating and drinking to excess.  You can’t control getting sick.

Obesity being the issue that it is for Americans, I keep thinking that if I analyze my situation it will help find a solution to the problem.  I’m beginning to think that’s a pipe dream.  I see people who are using scooters or chairs to get around who, at least by appearance, are immobilized by their weight.  Why didn’t they get scared before it got to that point?  Why did I?

It seems I remember feeling trapped.  I thought that I would be fat because that’s who I was and there was nothing I could do about it.  Trung gave me an alternative.  How do you help people recognize that there is an alternative to the status quo?  People are still very much trapped in their own heads.  I know I am.