The Sweet Spot

I've come to realize something over the past couple of days spent at home, bored, waiting to be called for a job and hoping to not be called by the credit card people.  I've been feeling down lately about this whole weight loss thing.  Looking at my past "performance", so to speak, all I was seeing was that I lost a few pounds, gained it all (or more) back, lost it again, gained it back, lost a little more, gained, and so on and so forth.  I was thinking, "Why am I doing this?  Why do I try again every day or week just to have the same cycle of loss and gain happen?"  I chided myself for not working out enough, for being lax in my eating, for not wanting it enough to make it happen faster.

But I've come to realize that I have made a difference in my life.  I've lost nearly fifteen pounds since this time last summer, and I know in the deepest part of my heart and mind that I will never go back to 216.  I won't let that happen.  It really just is not an option in my head.  This morning I weighed in at 202.5, and got upset because I was hoping to be back to 201.5.  But the number doesn't matter.  The loss matters.  The fact that even when life had gotten to be too much and my old habits took over I was still able to recover, to take the weight back off (and in a pretty timely manner, I think). 

Of course I'm going to gain weight back sometimes.  Shit happens.  But what I want, what I started this new blog for, is to change the way I think about my weight.  To address the underlying emotional issues, to find that sweet spot where eating and life, with all its shit, are in balance.  And that's what I've done.  That's the difference I've made.  The number doesn't matter.  What matters is that I now eat about five servings of fruits more per week than I did last summer.   That I eat about six or seven more servings of veggies per week than I used to.  That I have kept my weight off (save for those five pounds of wiggle room), and that I have changed my habits.  While I still feel the need to seek out less-than-healthy food when I'm upset, I'm now able to limit my intake to one cookie or such.  Yesterday, when I was so, so emotionally wrecked, the worst thing I ate was a falafel from work.  And I even had intentions of going home to make something healthy, but was starving and already downtown so I decided it was okay.  Because that's life.  Give and take. 

I am not a failure.  I'm a success.  I'm doing this, as slowly as I need to so that my habits can fall in line with the way I want to live my life.  I am making changes every day.   And if I only lose fifteen pounds by the next summer, then so be it, because I can guarantee that my mind and my response to food will be completely different.

I think I've found my life's sweet spot.  And now that I see it, I couldn't be happier to be here.

So here's to my success, to your success, and to all of us doing this together.  Because I know I couldn't have made it here without your support and friendship, and I won't be able to keep going without you either.  I once thought I didn't need this community, and I have never been more wrong about anything in my entire life.

I promise to be more present and supportive to all of you like you have been for me.  And I want to thank you for being the biggest part of my success.  : )

Have a beautiful day, everyone.  <3