Beth's WW Journey

I began this journey when I was 13 years old. That was the first time an authority figure told me that I was fat.  My pediatrician scared the dickens out of me and my mother with tales of how if I didn't lose weight RIGHT THEN I'd be fat for the rest of my life.  My fat cells would fill up and no matter how hard I tried it would get harder and harder to lose weight.

What the doctor didn't realize, and neither did we, was that my weight was actually fine.  Maybe I needed to lose a few pounds, but at 13 I was already at my adult height and was fully developed. 

Naturally we told my grandmother about this.  She knew just what to do.  Diet pills. That was the answer.  Back in the day, that meant amphetamines.  And naturally she had them available in what we called her pharmacy (in most houses, it was a medicine closet).

I didn't stay on them long.  The first "diet" I remember going on was a very early low carb diet.  I remember eating the bacon but not the pancakes and of course my mom was not happy with me.  I dieted down from about 130 to 118 and then managed to get down to about 104 for about 2 weeks.  I couldn't sustain that weight. It was physically impossible.  I looked like a walking 2x4 with boobs!  I was well-endowed and as I lost weight, that didn't change.

Throughout my teens I maintained at about 118.  Looking back at pictures of me then, I now think I looked great, but naturally as an insecure teenager, I was never happy with my body. I didn't like the attention I was getting. Not only from the neighborhood boys who were acting goofy.. but also from adults men.  No one realized how uncomfortable I was. Even when I tried to talk about it, the adult women in my life tried to "tease" me out of it by telling me how jealous they were of my shape.  I would have given ANYTHING if I could have given it to them.  They grew up with voluptuos role models.  Their generation wanted the "classic" hour glass shape.   I grew up with Twiggy.  She was skinny even by today's ridiculous standards for models.  Every thing about me was "wrong".  I was shapely, big busted, short and almost worst of all, my hair was curly and frizzy instead of absolutely straight!

Naturally, now I understand that it was my own insecurities that made me feel that way.  I also now understand that all of my friends felt pretty much the same way, most of them were just a lot better at covering it up.  If there is one thing I would like to teach to other young women it's just that. NOBODY is comfortable in their body during their teens. NOBODY.  Today's young women have the advantage that we are now teaching that sexual harrassment is WRONG.  It's not boys being boys.  It's not Natural.  It's WRONG. It's disrespectful. AND WE DESERVE better treatment than that.

Anyway, that was the background.  My food addiction started developing during those trying years.  I turned to food for comfort.  I think the only reason I was able to maintain my weight was because even though I didn't participate in a lot of sports, I was very active.  Unless it was raining, I walked or rode my bike everywhere.  After school we would walk for miles just to hang out with friends from the other end of town.

That changed when I went to college.  Suddenly I was living on campus and while I still walked everywhere, the "everywhere" got a lot smaller.  I gained my freshman 15 and it stayed around. Life happened. I left college and started working.  Now I drove from my house to my job, back home.  I drove to my friends houses to hang out.  We stayed in or went to the movies or bars.  Physical activity cut back drastically, but I was still turning to food for comfort.  With each pound that creeped on it was easy to think "well, I'm fat already, what's another pound or two". 

The first time I joined Weight Watchers I was about 20 years old.  It was a very structured program at the time.  They told us how much of what kind of food to eat at each meal.  2 oz of protein for breakfast, 4 at lunch and 6 at dinner. We had to eat 5 fish meals each week. We had to eat liver 1x / week.  We had to eat 3 fruits per day.. but we weren't allowed to eat an apple and a banana on the same day.  Yikes!  No wonder I wasn't able to stick with it.  I also had the challenge of living at home at the time.  I tried to explain to my mom that I needed to take the skin OFF the chicken BEFORE it was cooked.  That was REVOLUTIONARY at the time and she just couldn't accept it.  On a road trip I bought a bushel of apples so I could make my own sugar free applesauce (it wasn't readily available like today).  When I got home from work the next day, the whole bushel had been made up. .... with sugar in every batch!  I don't blame my mom for this. She just didn't know any different.  This way of cooking was so very different than anything she'd ever heard of.

Jump ahead to about two years ago.  By then I'd tried just about every diet known to man and had dieted my way up to 250+ pounds.  Atkins, Sugar busters, Carb Addicts, calorie counting, OTC diet pills, Metabolism boosters, Jenny Craig, LA Weightloss, the other one that sells you their own food, but is only online now instead of having centers. And of course, a few more rounds with Weight Watchers. I also spent some time going to Overeaters Anonymous meetings.  By then I had been diagnosed as Diabetic.  I took Xenical (fat blocker) and it seemed to help.  But I got to a point where I just couldn't do it anymore.  I was driving myself crazy  going from one diet to another. It certainly wasn't physically healthy and I was just getting more and more depressed as I failed with each plan.

I was ready to look into weight loss surgery.  I was convinced it was the only thing left to me. My boss kept talking to me about the new Weight Watchers points plan.  It seemed ridiculous to me.. look at calories and convert things to points.. how on earth would doing that extra step help?  I talked to my doctor about the surgery.  During that very first conversation, he was THRILLED. He knew someone he could refer me to.  According to him, my diabetes would IMMEDIATELY go away, even before I lost all the weight. Cholesterol wasn't really a problem, but it would be much better.   I was really looking forward to finding out more about it.  Then, without even meaning to, he said something that dashed all my hopes and sent me back to Weight Watchers.  He told me that weight loss surgery can FAIL.  He wasn't talking about the horrible side effects or the death rate.  He was talking about people who FAILED TO LOSE all their excess weight or FAILED TO KEEP IT OFF!   He said it failed when people couldn't adjust to the drastic change required in their lifestyle.

There it was again. LIFESTYLE CHANGE.  Change the way I eat. Change the way I move. Deal with the food addiction.  Now I finally saw that there was no alternative.  It took me about 5 minutes to decide that Weight Watchers was the only way to go. It took me about a month to actually sign up.

I borrowed my boss's information and discovered that the plan was actually very doable.  I set a date and determined to sign up on that date.  I had been planning on going to meetings but when I looked on line to find a meeting in my area, I discovered WW Online.  I found the message boards. I felt like I was finally home. Instead of signing up for meetings, I signed up for online. I  have never looked back.  As of today(5/1/2004) I've lost 57 pounds since I signed up on 1/19/2004.   I look at this as a learning experience. I am dealing with behaviors that I learned as a child.  I am learning to respond to issues as they come up instead of shoving my feelings down with food.  I am not perfect. As a matter of fact, this week as been horrendous! But, if I let my imperfection get in my way, I'd never make any progress.  I finally understand that PROGRESS, Persistance are the key to getting to and maintaining a healthy weight. Perfection is too easily side tracked.

Have a great day!

Moofest Pics:

I'm selfish,impatient and a little insecure. I'm out of control and at times I'm hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst then you don't deserve me at my best.  - Marilyn Monroe

"Winning doesn't teach you anything. You win. End of story. But the losing and what you take from it --- that's the interesting bit" Hugh Laurie

"When one is convinced that the grass is fuller and more fertile on the other side of an ocean, one invests less effort in feeding what grows naturally, with little force, in one's native soil. "  Katti Gray (Newsday columnist)

"I will no longer allow myself to engage in behvior that will make me think less of myself." BethHL

I will not fear. Fear is the mindkiller. I will let fear wash over me. Bene Gesseret teaching (Dune series)

Hard Working people only smell bad to people with nothing better to do than to stick their noses in the air. Pa Ingalls, Little House On the Prairie.

If you are afraid of the answer, don't ask the question – McGuyver

Life is 1% what happens to you, and 99% how you handle it!!

How long does it take a giant tree to grow? Just look at how beautiful the end result is - from the movie An Apartment for Peggy (I think that's the name)

A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow (I saw it on the game ZUMA)

You'll think less of what people think of you, when you realize how seldom they do. Oscar Wilde

Life is what happens when you are busy looking at the scale - Aging2Perfection (marcia, marcia, marcia)

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours. ~ Henry David Thoreau 

If you'd like to read some of my thoughts click here

http://chemistry.about.com/cs/5/f/blwaterintox.htm

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89323934&ft=1&f=1001

http://body.aol.com/diet/weight-loss-program/lose-water-weight?icid=100214839x1202059581x1200073614 

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