The Emotional Rollercoaster

I had a different post practically ready to go for this week's edition but decided it may be best left for another time.  The goal (well, one of many really) of this blog is to be nothing short of real.  I'm not always going to be my own biggest cheerleader.  Sometimes, I will share my moments of self-doubt.  That is, after all, part of being a work in progress.  In fact, I don't really believe that I can entirely eliminate the self-doubt.  I think that I just have to wade through it somehow, even when I don't feel like it.

This week, I thought I'd touch on why I am back here to begin with.  And, yes, you guessed it...it wasn't because I became physically incapable of keeping the weight off or I had an injury that prevented me from working out, no.  When I started this journey back in late 2004, my heart wasn't in it at first.  I was actually motivated to begin by the show, The Biggest Loser.  That may have been the year it began so then I began once again.  I even joined a gym and I remember I, as a new member of said gym, was entitled to a free fitness assessment.  I really didn't need a test to tell me that I needed to lose weight, that I was in terrible shape (or no shape at all really) but I signed up for it anyway and that was the day that I met a man who would change my life, my soon-to-be-trainer, Ian.  I was really excited about my new gym...it was pretty fahn-cy (I hope you're hearing that in a British accent because I am saying it in one as I write this).  It had three pools, a wet sauna, a dry sauna, more machines than you could imagine, it was open 24 hours....the list goes on and on.  It truly excited me to go there for my workouts.  Having a trainer (and a cute one at that, ahem) didn't hurt either.  But in all seriousness, he was one of my biggest cheerleaders and he pushed me when I needed it.

But as I said...at first, I wasn't 100% into it.  I was doing the workouts but not really following a food plan strictly (Weight Watchers, if you want to know).  In spite of that, because I was so heavy and doing so many workouts, I still lost weight (in fact, my first week's weigh-in resulted in over a ten pound loss, albeit most of that is usually water weight).  That was what really motivated me to do it correctly (not perfectly but better than I had been doing it).  It took me less than a year to lose 100 pounds (if you want specifics, my first weigh in was November 2, 2004 and I hit 100 lost by June 2005).  Actually, as I did the research to acquire that information, I find myself shocked and impressed by myself...my former self.  From then on, it was up and down for a long time.  In September 2005, my mother suffered a stroke.  Talk about an emotional derailment.  I hit my lowest sometime in early-to-mid-2006 (keep in mind I started a new job in March 2006).  At first, I actually made the commute from my new job to my wonderful gym even though it was totally out of the way.  During the rest of that year, I did a number of things.  I quit the gym.  I started and then stopped seeing a therapist for my emotional eating/body issues.  And I decided to go back to school.  Actually, it was that decision that motivated me to stop seeing my therapist...time and money.

I had to give you some history so that you understand something.  I lost OVER ONE HUNDRED POUNDS and I still wasn't happy.  Something was wrong.  I felt like I should have been feeling over the moon but I wasn't.  Losing that weight didn't solve my problems.  The only problem it solved was being overweight/obese physically.  Mentally, I was still the fat girl.  There was a hole in me (still there, really) that had not been filled.  And I'm gonna say it...I was still single.  I didn't magically get asked out on dates just because my physical self had gone through such a transformation.  I even had the lady balls (yes, I just said that) to approach my "gym crush" and he shot me down).  It was a blow.  I know no one likes rejection but considering my (unrealistic) expectations at the time, I was blown away in the worst way.  

The emotional rollercoaster of losing weight has always been the most trying part of the journey.  I don't always eat because I am hungry.  I eat because I am bored, lonely, "forever alone", sad, feeling rejected, or because I just plain hate myself.  They're not pretty reasons but they're real ones that I need to face head on so that I make this journey successful FOR LIFE.  Losing weight can only be for me.  I can't lose it so that someone other than my family or friends will love me or so that my latest crush will ask me out on a date.  And I can't lose it and expect my life to magically change overnight.  I have to continually work on ME...every aspect of me.  

This week, I will end my post with a quote:  

"Never give up because you never know if the next try is going to be the one that works."