Losing 50 lbs

I write this post wondering if I will ever publish it. I don’t really like to talk about my weight as it has been a struggle for my entire adult life. However, it is impossible to hide that struggle when the weight loss or gain is on the order of 50 pounds. People who see me everyday and thus might not notice a gain or loss of ten pounds have started noticing my weight loss. I am not exactly trying to hide it, but I am just scared of whether or not I can keep it off. I’ve been here before.

This current weight loss journey started when I moved to the DC area. I’ve written about how I changed my life from one based on getting around in a car to a mainly pedestrian life. I did that mainly so that I wouldn’t have to deal with DC traffic, but truthfully I am not one of those people who loves their car, and I am just as happy walking. In adopting this pedestrian life, I lost about 25 pounds over the course of about nine months. I wasn’t trying to lose weight, and the only reason I knew I was was that every time I saw my physician, she happily exclaimed that I had lost more weight. The only thing I had changed in my life during this time, besides the pedestrian lifestyle, was to stop bringing home sweets. I have a problem with sweets, so I decided for Lent last year that I would eat sweets guilt free outside the house, but I just wouldn’t bring them home. [I’m Episcopalian, and I always try to give up something for Lent.] I knew from experience that if I tried to give up sweets entirely, I would just want them more, and I would doom myself for certain failure.

After my physician’s visit nine months after the first time I had seen her and the realization that I had lost a total of about 25 pounds, I realized some of my clothes had seemed slightly looser. Obviously the weight loss was nice, but I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do. Sure, I wanted to keep doing what I was doing to either maintain that weight loss or perhaps slowly lose a bit more. For the past several decades I have made lifestyle changes that had aided that weight loss, but at this point in my life I had sworn off diets. There has been some research to show that yo-yo dieting is really not healthy, and I didn’t want to do it in any event. I have lost a significant amount of weight twice before. The first time I was in my 20’s and lost about 60 pounds on my own. I did it by a lot of exercise and what I now realize was rather unhealthy caloric restriction. The second time I lost about 40 pounds on Jenny Craig. I couldn’t get past 40 pounds even though I was following the diet fairly faithfully. The fact that I got diagnosed with hypothyroidism part of the way through my diet with them may have affected things. I also think that my calories may have been restricted too much. I exercised very often, and at least at the time, the prescribed Jenny Craig diet didn’t account for calories burned through activity. I know someone currently on Weight Watchers, and she said their plans now have you eat more food based on how much exercise you get. I have no idea if Jenny Craig now does this, but as I know from personal experience that I need to tailor my caloric intake based on my exercise or caloric output. Medical experts generally agree that losing more than a pound of so a week is not generally healthy, and if I were to restrict my calories to less than 1700 calories daily and exercise the way I do, in theory I would be losing at a rate that is not healthy.

So I was down 25 pounds without really trying, and I wasn’t sure what to do. I really loved the idea of losing more weight, but I hated the idea of losing more to only gain it back. Not too long after I started trying to decide if I wanted to try to lose more weight, I heard about Fitbit. I decided to get one and see just how active I was. I discovered that I was quite active compared to the average person, and with the Fitbit, I became even more active. I am a data geek, and I love collecting data on myself. It gave and still gives me encouragement to keep moving and be more active. About a month after getting the Fitbit, I purchased a scale to weigh myself and started using Fitbit’s system to keep track of what I was eating. By then, I had decided I would try to keep losing weight, but I was also not exactly going to diet. That is, I would try to limit my caloric intake by 500 calories a day (to lose a pound a week), but if I went over every once in while when out with friends or something, so be it. I had made enough lifestyle changes before that, once I started counting calories, I didn’t have to change that much anyway.

So now it’s 20 months since I first started losing weight, and nine months since I really started to try to lose weight. I weigh myself everyday, which while some say is not beneficial, I do because I’m a data geek. The more data the better, and I’ve become fascinated with the daily changes of up then down. I’ve also noticed that I tend to be stagnant in weight loss for a week or two, then drop three pounds overnight. While this definitely occurs with my hormonal cycle, it also appears to happen at unrelated times. From what I’ve found searching the internet, this is fairly common. One person has proposed that it is related to water replacing triglycerides in fat cells temporarily, but he readily admits, he has no proof of it. Whatever the reason, it seems to happen to me.

I exercise almost everyday, and I try to walk as much as possible. I log all my food to count the calories. I’m sure to some people this would be beyond tedious, but I feel like I am running an observational science study on myself. I still don’t exactly consider myself to be dieting. If I weren’t trying to lose weight, I might eat a bit more bread or something, but I also realize that if I have any chance of keeping this weight off forever, then how I live my life now is for the most part how I am going to have to live it forever. I will never be one of those people who can eat whatever they want and never exercise and not gain weight. I am fairly sure if I ever stop exercising on a regular basis, i.e. several times a week, I will gain weight. Also, when I say exercise, I am not talking a brisk walk a couple of times a week. I exercise on my elliptical machine for an hour several times a week. I started running several months ago, and I try to go for one or two 3 mile runs plus a long run, which at this time is 5 miles, each week. I do resistance training with free weights and resistance bands. I also walk everywhere and try to go for a walk at lunch every work day.

Now, I’ve lost over 50 pounds total. It’s 55 pounds according to the scale this morning, but I easily go up and down a couple of pounds each week. I suppose I should be happy and proud of myself. I am, but I am also terrified. As I said, I’ve lost lots of weight before. Losing weight, or at least the initial weight loss is easy. Keeping the weight off and losing more is incredibly hard. I am not sure how much more I need to lose. My guess is that I need to lose another 20 to 30 pounds. I’ve dropped three or four dress sizes. I haven’t bought that many new clothes though. The tops are just loose on me. However, I have had to buy some new pants because I can cinch them with a belt because otherwise they would just fall off me, but some I have to cinch so much they look clownish on me. Several people have asked why I don’t buy more new clothes. My answer is two-fold. I hope to lose more weight, and thus I don’t want to buy clothes that won’t fit me in several months. Two, but just as importantly, I am scared that I can’t keep the weight off. I have a huge stack of clothes in my closet that don’t fit me anymore. I can’t bring myself to donate them yet because I am just too scared of my ability to keep the weight off.

I suppose the good thing is that I realize this is not a diet. This has to be a lifestyle change to last my life. To a certain extent, I feel like an addict in recovery. My addiction is food, so I can’t go cold turkey (no pun intended). I have to eat. I just have to always eat smart, and I always have to get a lot of exercise. However, I like what I eat right now. I eat lots of fruits and vegetables. I eat lean meats. I never have been a fan of fried food or many other really fattening food. What I eat now I am entirely happy to eat for the rest of my life. This as opposed to when I was on Jenny Craig. I am not trying to slam Jenny Craig, but at some point, even if I had been completely successful with that diet, I would have had to transition to “real” food. I fix healthy meals and enjoy eating them. I don’t eat disgusting low calorie food just because it is low calorie. I eat healthy, nutritious, delicious food that I happen to make low calorie.

So if you know me personally, that is what is going on with me. That is why some of my clothes are falling off me. Perhaps now, you also understand why I am not screaming from the rooftop that I have lost over 50 pounds because it will just be all the more embarrassing if I gain it back. If you compliment me, know that I appreciate it. I really do. I just don’t have enough confidence in myself to fully be happy and proud of myself. I’ve been here before.