Yes and No

 

               It’s been a long couple of years as I’ve struggled to maintain my weight loss. 

This leg of my journey began in the spring of 2017 when we had just moved into our apartment in Las Colinas. I had spent a good eight months getting ready for the big move. Between culling through eighteen years of accumulations, getting a house ready to sell( not an easy task after eighteen years), and making arrangements for a new living space, healthy eating was the last thing on my mind. 

After settling in the reality was that I had gained back about twenty pounds of weight that I had previously lost. Now the good thing, though was generally my weight gain was usually closer to thirty pounds, so I was already ahead of the game by ten pounds.

I located the nearest Weight Watcher studio and began the arduous task of losing those twenty pounds. At a half a pound a week as an average loss, it took about seven months to reach my goal. 

Along the way, though, I began to make acquaintances with my fellow WW members. Along with losing weight I was making friends in my new community. I looked forward to my meeting each week. Add to that a pretty dynamic coach, and I was on my “weigh!”

For the next several months my weight loss slowed down, and it wasn’t until the next summer when I embraced a plant-based diet that I began to lose weight again. In total I lost about another ten pounds. 

Now to be honest I felt like I was a little too thin, and although I enjoyed plant-based eating I felt like I was not getting all the nutrition my body needed by eliminating meat and dairy. I went back to about an 80/20 diet with plants playing a more prominent role. 

As time went by, though, I found myself slipping back into my old habits. As much as I wish I could say that losing the initial weight is the hard part, for me it’s always the maintaining part that is the challenge. Forever is a long time. 

As much as I tried I was struggling to be motivated to continue down the path of healthy eating. The one bright spot was that I had reconnected with a High School friend at one of my WW meetings. We began meeting for a healthy lunch, and proceeded to catch up and support each other in our weight loss journey. So along with a healthy weight I had a new friend as well. 

Interestingly, it was the beginning of the pandemic that kicked me into gear, and motivated me to embrace my healthy lifestyle whole heartedly. Although, we really knew little about the infamous Corona Virus at the time, I knew instinctively that if I were to get the virus, it could only help to be healthy. 

I began learning more about my own natural immunity system, and worked hard to boost it. This strategy worked fine during 2020, but as time went by, and we began to make plans for another move (technically we had already moved from the apartment after a year to a home in Euless) I found my resolve waning. 

Once again the stress of the move began to interfere with my healthy lifestyle. Add to that a year of Chuck and I living separately during the week as he continued to work in Irving, and I two hours away, I was now completely off the rails. 

He was no longer home, and my cooking consisted of unhealthy casseroles that I could send with him back to the apartment. Meanwhile, I was basically eating nonstop, and nothing actually healthy. 

As my weight began to creep up I began each day thinking things would be different. They never would be, and I would retire each night feeling quite discouraged and disappointed in my lack of resolve.

One good thing, though, that I continued to do was to attend at least one WW meeting a month to do my monthly weigh in. By doing this I could keep my lifetime status current, and receive my online tools for free( although, technically I wasn’t using them.)

Predictably the WW eating plan had changed (which it does regularly) right about the time I moved, and I never could quite adjust myself to the lack of points I was given daily. Although, I could earn points through healthy choices, I just couldn’t find the motivation to do so. 

Last week I stepped on the scale, and as it hovered close to the next decade I knew I had to do something. As I looked through my WW app for motivation, I came across something that really resonated with me. 

“Saying no to things that don’t align with your goals allows you to shift your focus to what you are actually saying yes to.”

In other words, by saying no to that handful of potato chips or that nightly dessert I was actually saying yes to a healthier body, and a weight I felt more comfortable at.

I was able to make it though one day ( no easy feat when babysitting my grandsons at their home). I’ve found that if I can make it through one day then I can usually make it through two days. Sure enough I did, and now I’m at a week and a half. 

My weight is down about three pounds, and I’m encouraged to keep going. I only want to lose a few more pounds, and those may take a little longer, but that’s okay. 

What I’m finding is that food is beginning to taste better again. When I’m filling upon junk rather than on whole real foods, my pallet seems to take a nose dive, and nothing really ever satisfies my taste. 

Today when I’m tempted to eat something I know is not on my plan I say yes to what I really want, and that seems to be guiding my success. 

It’s kind of crazy how I got to yes, by saying no first.