Lifelong Struggle With Weight

One of my goals during this short journey to 50 (and beyond) is to show parts of myself that I normally wouldn’t because I’m afraid of what others may think. I have a few ideas but I’m not quite ready for the deep stuff that makes me feel vulnerable. Baby steps.

So here’s something a little easier (yet still a little scary), because I know many others can relate...the struggle of weight loss. I started gaining weight when my parents bought a convenience store the summer before I turned 13. It was filled with every kind of junk food a kid could ever want. Every variety of candy bar, chips, and soda. Twinkies and ice cream. Slushies. And it was all literally within hand’s reach since our home was attached to the tiny little store. How was I to resist, especially when I was expected to work there after school and weekends? It didn’t help that I began to suffer from depression due to parental and other issues, so I took comfort in how good the junk food made me feel.

It was the beginning of a lifelong addiction to processed food. I carried it into adulthood and probably passed it on to my kids, my biggest failure as a parent if that’s true. Several times a year, I vow I’ll make the change to a healthier lifestyle, I’ll finally lose the weight, I’ll cook healthy meals for my family every day... It never lasted more than a few weeks at a time, or sometimes days.

The irony is that I know enough to write books on nutrition and exercise. In an effort to try to lose the weight, I read hundreds of books and thousands of articles on the various methods. I even got my personal training certificate which I was too embarrassed to use. Who would go to an overweight trainer, even though I knew how to train and was reasonably fit (at the time). I used to say I was the fittest fat person I knew. I was active, I “ran” 5Ks, completed a marathon and sprint triathlon, did weight training, outlasted my teens doing P90X… until my body started breaking down.

I’ve often thought my biggest regret in life would be to never know how it looks and feels to be a normal weight as an adult and to wear pretty clothes in a single digit size. Since turning 45 and as I quickly approach 50, the struggle has only become more difficult. I told my husband a few months ago, if I couldn’t lose the weight by my birthday, I would stop with all the dieting and just accept it. I was tired of the never-ending cycle of deprivation to lose weight only to gain it back within a short time. I think I calculated once that I probably lost anywhere from 30-80 pounds a year, depending on how much I dieted. Unfortunately, I also gained every pound back each year, though I managed to stay in a certain range, year after year since college, even after 3 babies.

But this has been a tough year with my shoulder surgery, slowing metabolism, and whacky hormones. I’ve gained ~20 pounds on top of the ~80 pounds I lost and re-gained since last October. 81 pounds I’d managed to lose!... a couple of pounds here and there that would come back within days, and I would do it all over again the following week. I don’t even need to lose that much to get to my goal weight!

Experts say don’t diet, especially yo-yo dieting which can damage one’s metabolism. Instead, make a lifestyle change, something you can do for the rest of your life. Experts also say not to go below 1200 calories when on a diet since it will slow down metabolism. At my barely 5 foot height, 1200 is what I’m supposed to eat if I was already at a healthy weight, in order to neither gain nor lose weight. If you’ve calculated the calories in some of your reasonably portioned meals, you can see that 1200 calories is not a lot of food for an entire day. To eat low fat, low calories foods that barely fill me up, day in and day out…the thought is depressing, which goes to show how much pleasure is derived from food in our society. I’m not sure I’ll ever get to a point where I can master that kind of eating lifestyle.

However, I am pretty sure I’ve damaged my metabolism with over three decades of yo-yo dieting. I know I have an eating disorder of some type. I don’t binge like you see people on TV doing. I just eat the wrong foods and, yes, I eat more than what my vertically challenged body needs, because even when I eat healthy, my brain is not satisfied until I’ve had something unhealthy. There’s a scientific explanation behind this having to do with dopamine (which I’m not qualified to explain), but basically, it’s an addiction to the chemicals in junk food that provides the brain with a rush of good feelings, just like cigarettes, alcohol or drugs do.

The only way to break an addiction is to completely avoid it. You can’t really do that with food since you need to eat at some point to survive. I also have to feed my family and keep food in the house. And you can’t get away from it in today’s consumerist society. Every other commercial on TV is food related, portrayed in a way that’s guaranteed to make you crave and salivate. Social events almost all revolve around food. When was the last time you met friends for an outing that didn’t involve food or drinks? (If you have, comment below because I’d love some ideas!)

So I’m still looking for a solution, and I hope to find one before my birthday, because I’m not a quitter. Over 35 years of constantly trying can attest to that. I’m not ready to accept that I’ll be overweight until the day I die. If I stop trying to lose weight, it means I’d keep gaining, impacting my health and the quality of life with my family. And I’m definitely not ready to give up on living my life to the fullest. I still have a lot to accomplish.