On Brick Walls and Breakthroughs

As I mentioned in our summer recap, I lost some weight!
 Actually, that's the incredibly abridged summary to the story of the story about...

"How I conquered my life's greatest vice (smoking) only to gain a new one (eating) that seemed equally impossible to conquer, until I finally (mostly) found success after much agony, despair, perserverence, and gnashing of teeth."

And here, of course,
 (because it it's me here, and let's face it, I may have a tendency toward verbosity)
is the not so short story....

My entire adult life I've weighed between 105lbs (my wedding weight) and 125lbs (my 'egads I'm fat!' weight).  My body was happy to be 125, and I was able to maintain that quite easily throughout my twenties and early thirties.  However, I preferred to weigh 115 pounds, so there was always the constant battle of the ten pounds.  Like Bridget Jones in her diary, I'd gain and lose 200lbs a year, in 2 pound increments.  Up two, down two.  Up one, down three.  Up three, down two.  And so on.

Then I did something I never thought I'd be able to do.  For Molly's first birthday, I quit smoking.  FOR GOOD. 
Not a puff of smoke has passed these lips since June 10, 2006! 
Go me!

I wanted to be healthy, so at the same time I quit smoking, I switched to a whole foods diet.  Kicked out the evil white bread, pasta, rice and sugar and replaced them with healthy, whole-grain alternatives.

Once I quit smoking, my appetite was INSATIABLE! Despite what I'd heard about your body being naturally satisfied by the goodness of whole foods, I simply could. not. stop. eating!  I was starving 24/7.  Apparently, this is what happens when you addict yourself to an appetite supressant (nicotine) at the tender age of 16. (this is also why I will string my children up by their toenails if I ever catch them smoking - I will NEVER let them abuse their bodies the way I did!)

The 30lbs I gained in the four months that followed were wickedly easy to put on.  And surprisingly IMPOSSIBLE to take off.  We'd been trying to get pregnant and I knew that, at 148lbs, my body was not happy.  And it told me so in negative pregnancy tests as month after month went by with no baby on the horizon.

 

I tried Jenny Craig....FAIL.

I tried Weight Watchers...FAIL.
I tried my old buddy the Atkins Diet...FAIL!

The programs can work, don't get me wrong.  But they didn't work for me  because they couldn't tame my appetite!  My attempts to starve myself were futile.  After quitting smoking, I simply had no willpower left.

Over the course of a few months, I did manage to eek off a few pounds to get myself to 135lbs, the weight at which my body snapped to attention and we found out we were expecting!  Ben was born November 12, 2007 and in my postpartum hormone glow, I thought that I'd get right back on the bandwagon to getting my old body back.

HA!

I spent every day in AGONY as my size 8 pants strangled my midsection.  I finally realized that more than a weight adjustment, I needed an attitude adjustment and a perspective adjustment.  I could choose comfort and happiness and make peace with my new body...or I could keep slamming my head into a brick wall by fighting and failing the weight loss battle.

I chose the former and bought myself some size 10s.  And I actually felt GOOD for the first time in a long time.  I am convinced that having clothes that fit and flatter you, no matter your size, is crucial to eliminating the self-loathing that comes with feeling like a failure at the weight loss game.

But before I knew it, and without changing my diet, my 10s became 12s.  And then one day my 12s were too tight, and I had to go out and buy my first pair of size 14 pants. I was 150 pounds and honestly, I felt pretty happy with myself.  I was chubby, and cute, and well dressed, and blessed beyond belief in everything but thin-ness.  I was enjoying my life, and my kids, and my husband and my friends, and my hobbies.  And I was able to put the weight out of my mind with the feeling that

 

"This is a battle I am going to win, but I can't win it right now, so I'm not going to waste my precious time, energy and sanity to fight it, right now."

Right about then, my brother became engaged to the love of his life, and in January, 2008, we all traveled to Chicago to celebrate their marriage.  I had a great new dress, the kids were adorable, Marc was dashing and the wedding was gloriously beautiful.

 

It wasn't until a week or two later when I saw myself in the pictures, and GASPED!

WHO IS THAT????!!!

THAT CAN NOT BE ME!

I don't look like that!

That looks like a bloated, marshmallow stay-puft version of me!

How, HOW can that be ME??!

(and also, isn't that the cutest one year old you ever saw?!)

Something had to be done.  And fast, because my sister had gotten engaged to the love of HER life, and their wedding was four months away. 

 

So I went ALL IN.  Gave it everything I had.  Hired a personal trainer that cost a fortune.  Organized babysitters for every day of the week.  Got up at 5:30am every day to work out at bootcamp, then added in a personal training session three times a week.  Then did daily high-intensity-interval workouts at home.  On top of this, I stuck to my trainer's eating plan, which consisted of roughly 35 foods that I could eat, none of which were allowed to be microwaved, none of which were carbs, and none of which were processed.  And no caffeine.

 

Six weeks passed with me following this plan to a T.

I was PERFECT.  I did everything exactly as required, including not weighing myself AT ALL for the entire six weeks.  Every afternoon I would fall asleep face down on the floor as my kids watched Nickelodeon because I was so exhausted from the effort.

 

By the end of the six weeks, I could flip a 350lb tire six times across the room.

I could sprint a quarter mile with a 100lb sled strapped to my back.

Box jump half my height.

Chop vegetables in my sleep.

And did I mention I trained for, and ran, a 5k in the middle of this?

 

And when the day came to weigh in, I'd lost...

 

 

 

 

(drumroll please!)

 

 

 

 

 

five pounds.

 

 

 

Oh yes, you read that right!

 

FIVE.

 

POUNDS.

 

Now you may think in your head what so many people said to me which is
"Muscle weighs more than fat so you really have to look at your INCHES to know how much better off you are.  How many sizes did you lose?"

 

The short answer? 

 None. 

All of my clothes still fit, I could just juggle boulders while wearing them with my newfound superstrength.

 

My thoughts? 
Honestly?

"If I have to work THIS HARD to be thin.....then I'd rather be fat."

 

So I was, doggoneit!

I gave up the training.

I ate what I wanted.

I enjoyed my life.

 

And eventually, my weight climbed to

170 pounds.

 

UH OH.

 

Something had to give - because at this weight, I was going to be on the Biggest Loser in no time.

I tried Weight Watchers again.

FAIL.

Atkins Diet, again.

FAIL.

Counting Calories.

FAIL.

 

With nothing left to fail at...I went to the diet supplement aisle at Target.

I picked up a bottle of this...

 

 

And I stopped being hungry.

 

And I lost 25 pounds.

 

In 12 weeks.

 

After SO MUCH FAILURE? 

Success felt pretty sweet.

 

REALLY SWEET.

 

AWESOMELY SWEET!!

 

And then we moved across country, got busy unpacking, and when we were unpacked, got to work on having another baby.

 

But at 145 pounds, we were up against the same brick wall as before.

Months went by...then a year, with nothing but negative pregnancy tests to show for it.

 

As Fall 2012 dawned, I joined a group of friends striving for a healthier lifestyle and weight loss.  We were going to support each other and motivate each other to make good on our promises to ourselves.

I took up bike riding and started making healthier choices in what I ate.

I was CONSTANTLY on my bike.

I ate/drank more vegetables and fruits than I could imagine.

 

Did I lose any weight? 

Not an ounce.

But you could bounce quarters off my quads they were so ripped, and eventually, they began to stretch my jeans to capacity.  I could barely pull them on anymore.

 

FAIL #17.

 

As Christmas approached, it dawned on me...

I'm turning FORTY in October. 

Forty had always been my personal cutoff for baby making.

At this rate, there was a good chance that I was going to be

 

FORTY

and

OVERWEIGHT

and

NOT PREGNANT.

 

I had loads of people in my life giving me advice.

But I'd tried to do things "their" way

(the "they" in quotation marks being the prevailing wisdom of the fitness industry and it's followers).

 

And all I got was failure.

 

I considered adding Slimquick back in, but it's not safe to take while trying to concieve. 

I had to make a choice.

 

My friend Slimquick came back into the picture.

Along with a new buddy named MyFitnessPal.

 

Because I had to give up the quest to get pregnant while taking the supplement, I gave myself an end date.  We were going to Las Vegas in April.  Whatever weight I was going to lose had to be lost by then, because every month that passed by was a month I had to kiss goodbye the dream of having a fourth child in our lives.

 

January passed.

February.

March

and

finally April.

 

And 25 pounds were gone!!!!

 

I was five pounds from my ultimate goal of 125lbs

(How ironic that this was my previous "fat weight"! Ah, perspective, you are hilarious!)

 

And the rest, as they say, is history.

I stopped taking the supplement at the end of March

and we got pregnant in April in Las Vegas.

 

I've maintained a healthy weight since then, and am currently 140lbs and 23 weeks pregnant.

 

Through this whole, SIX YEAR ordeal, I have learned

 

HUMILITY

as I had to submit to failure after failure, realizing that hard work and smart choices sometimes aren't enough to equal success.  Sometimes there's a lesson to be learned that only frustration and failure can teach.

 

EMPATHY

for anyone who ever had to fight this hard to overcome an obstacle in their lives,

be it weight or something else. 

I now understand why so many just give up. 

As painful as it is, sometimes giving up is the only thing you can do.

 

PERSERVERENCE

I learned that even though sometimes you need to give up,

there will eventually be a wave of renewed inspiration

that will give you the vigor to fight the good fight again.

 

SELF-CONTROL

Sometimes it doesn't come easy.  Sometimes you need help from an outside source to reign in your selfish instincts.  Because we all have them.  It boils down to the inability to choose discomfort NOW for a better outcome TOMORROW.  But I truly believe that the best things in life come from employing self-control, and that when we don't, we are not living up to the potential we have been given with the gift of life we have been blessed with.

 

So I choose to nourish my body with healthy foods instead of destroying it with junk.

 

I choose to bless my body with exercise instead of wasting it with sloth.

 

I choose to rest my body with an earlier bedtime

instead of the night-owl instincts that sap me of energy

and send me running toward sugar.

 

 

I'm okay with the way things have turned out, because I think it's refined me into a better, deeper thinking, more empathetic version of myself.  Today, my lungs and heart are nearly unrecognizable as those of a veteran smoker.  And if I continue making healthy choices and staying active, I think I'll be well on my way to living the life I imagine.

 

It's not always easy, but it's worth it!