I had been raised with my parents thinking I was fat and trying to fix the problem, in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways. My mom just flat out told me I was fat and needed to lose weight, but also insisted I eat whatever was put in front of me and fed me way more food that I needed. My dad did things like talk about how clothing styles and hair cuts affected how people looked, or what camera angles were flattering. He also cooked in the healthiest way he could in the 80's and 90's (if you tried to eat “healthy” then you will understand how unpleasant that can be), both to help his health issues and to improve my weight. I, however, never really cared that much, beyond just accepting I must be fat. However it did train some seriously unhealthy things into my world view.
When I came home from college for a visit, I saw a picture of myself from senior year up in my allergist's office, but I had no idea it was me at first. It was a familiar person, a pretty girl, I must have known her, but she couldn't be me since I was fat and she was definitely not. When I realized it was me, I was in shock. I had never seen myself like that, as “pretty,” not as “fat,” and the two terms were definitely not meant to go together. The me I saw in the mirror had never looked slender and attractive like that. I realized then I hadn't actually been fat when I was in high school. I had been 5'7 and wore a size 10. I walked and/or biked miles daily. I was strong. I had been perfectly healthy and completely convinced I was fat. The problem was, by that point, I was decidedly on the route to officially being fat (thank you, college cafeteria food) and my innate view of myself in the mirror was permanently warped to view what I saw as fat and unacceptable.
I got engaged in 1999 and, like many women, decided to lose weight to look as good as possible for the big day. I already did martial arts, but I focused on it more and tried to eat healthier. I also joined a group called TOPS (Taking Off Pounds Sensibly) with a friend of mine and weighed myself for the first time in years. I was 205.5lbs the day of that first meeting and I knew I had already lost some weight before making it to that meeting. The last weight I remembered weighing was 165lbs and that was during my senior year of high school, five years prior.
Around that time a picture was taken of me that reinforced my decision. I had no idea I looked like that! I knew I was overweight, but I really looked fat. I took it as good incentive and that that first year in TOPS I lost 15lbs. I stayed in TOPS, actively trying to lose weight and was working construction, but I when I got pregnant around three and a half years later I weighed exactly the same weight I did at my wedding, after many ups and downs on the scale.
I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes during both of my pregnancies and learned a lot about nutrition and healthy eating. I also learned that after two bouts of gestational diabetes my chances of getting Type 2 within ten years of the birth of my second child were well over 80%. I also managed to keep my pregnancy weight gain down to an reasonable amount, around 25lbs with the first and 20lbs with the second, and lost most of it between pregnancies and a lot of it after the second.
At that point, I started having health issues, many of which I learned could be eased by weight loss, and I kept trying and trying to lose the weight while struggling with one health issue after another. I kept a food journal about 90% of the time since 1999. I stayed with TOPS for close to a decade. I tried pills, many kinds. I tried exercise. I tried teas. I tried fad diets. I tried cleanses. I tried life style changes. I read books. I monitored my calories. By 2016, I had been keeping under 1400 mostly healthy calories a day with sensible exercise for three years and I had gained ten pounds in that time. The entire time I had been constantly obsessed with food and disgusted with my physical appearance. Body dysmorphia is a painful struggle, no matter what other people see, all you can see is a warped and awful image of yourself.
A previous specialist had suggested a weight loss medication, but I didn't like the idea of just taking more pills. Between my health issues and the continued weight gain though, I decided to look into it. At this point I was sent to a nurse practitioner who specialized in weight loss. She checked me for underlying health conditions and found some. She put me on a slightly lower calorie count while we dealt with that and then started me on phentermine, a prescription amphetimine used for weight loss, because it was the cheapest option (my insurance wouldnt cover any of the weight loss medications and I didn't have much money to spare). Normally it can only be prescribed for three months, but in her program she can prescribe it for six. I had to see her monthly, have my blood pressure carefully monitored and had to have an EKG before I started on them. I was also told I could eat as few as 1000 calories a day during this time.
I was prescribed phentermine for six months, but it took almost nine months to make it through all of them due to taking a month off for the sake of my blood pressure and having to stop for awhile before and after surgeries (I had three in that time span). When I started in this nurse practitioner's program I weighed 206lbs. My highest weight ever had been around 230lbs. The lowest I ever made it to before was 180lbs. My goal weight had fluctuated through the years as well, depending on which doctor I talked to. It had been as low as 150lbs and as high as 165lbs This one told me staying between 170lbs and 175lbs should be a good healthy weight for me.
Now, after a short stint being pre-diabetic, my youngest son is nearly ten and I am very definitely not diabetic. In fact, on January 21, 2017 I hit the top of my weight range goal. I weighed 10 lbs more than when I was a senior in high school. When I get to the bottom of my range that will only be 5 lbs more. I feel as though I look “right” in clothes now, like the image I see matches the one in my mind. I don't look like I did in high school, of course, and there are some changes that came with weight loss that bother me, but I am lighter and healthier and I finally made it!
1. Keep a food diary, preferably online so it can track the calories for you. Measure your portions and write the food in your diary before you eat it. Write down everything you put into your body that has calories. You will be amazed at how aware you become of what you put into your body and when. Find problem times and/or foods and come up with acceptable alternate options. Always serve yourself a single portion instead of eating out of a bag or box.
2. There are no bad foods, just bad quantities. A slice of cake is fine, an entire cake, not so much. If you buy high quality treats and eat a single portion slowly, truly giving yourself the time to savor the flavors and textures, you might find you need less to feel satisfied than if you mindlessly shovel down cheap options. Spending the money on high quality treats can also make you value them more and try to make them last longer before you have to buy more. Restricting a specific food, unless you have an allergy, almost guarantees you will cheat and then blame your “poor will power” and yourself for it. If you want chocolate, have it! (I did pretty much every day the year I reached my goal.) Just have a single serving (or less) of high quality chocolate and give yourself the time to enjoy it.
3. Work with a doctor. There are many underlying health issues and medications that can make losing weight difficult or even cause you to gain weight. Make sure you are not struggling needlessly against your own body. Get a healthy weight goal range for your age and build from your doctor. Dress size and BMI are not the end all be all and your doctor will be able to give you a truly healthy weight goal as well as a sensible and safe daily calorie limit.
4. Taking in fewer calories than you use is how you lose weight. Have a calorie limit and try to keep under it the majority of the time. Exercise, but don't panic if you aren't spending an hour a day sweating. Exercise is necessary and good for your health, but recent studies have shown that it is not as important to weight loss as people thought. Generally the calorie burn from exercise, unless you are obsessively exercising, is too low to affect weight loss significantly. I reached my goal weight when I was the least physically active I have ever been due to two foot surgeries and an abdominal surgery, so you can't blame physical inactivity for lack of weight loss.
5. Last but most important, you are human and therefore imperfect and that is just fine! You don't need to be perfect to lose weight and be healthy. You just need to meet your goals more often than you don't. You wouldn't chew out your best friend for eating too much at a party, so don't do it to yourself. You would tell your friend that they will do better, no one is perfect, it's a process, they are doing good most of the time, and so on. Don't treat yourself any worse than you would treat your best friend.
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