Week one: completed! I feel successful and dazed. I had a sense that things went well this past week--I really did. I had a good handle on my points (how WW people keep track of food amounts) and was honest. Really, that's been the biggest challenge in the past with me--honesty. I figured out that if I could lie to other people, I could lie to myself. So I lied to myself about how much I was eating and voila! I got...huge. Pretty big.

I have friends who have never seen me "fit" or smallish, so they just simply don't know any different. The layers I have built up over the years are some sort of shelter for me, but why I do not know. I really don't. It feels that somehow it's about rejection--that somehow I am sheltered from "real" rejection or hurt with my layers of fat. I won't be rejected or hurt based on factors that are of the heart, mind, or soul if I am first judged by people based on my body fat. So I can just shove all the people who have disappointed or hurt me into this big category of "People Who Didn't Like Me Based on the Fact I am Fat." I realize this may sound crazy, but I honestly believe and feel deeply that this is part of the struggle I've had. ( Yes, I've been in counseling and am continuing to be, if you wondered. I realize this stuff is bigger than I am and a third party can be immensely helpful.)

Somewhere, down deep, I have had this sense that important people in my life have been rejected, or no longer loved, based on the fact that they gained weight. I didn't have this in the front of my mind as a child, but as I learned snippets of things over time, I believe I formed this irrational idea that this is what happened to someone I loved, and could/would happen to me as well. So it's like, if it was going to happen, I might as well be the one pushing it on and being in "control" of it. Yep, I brought the crazy to town with that one, but am reassured that this is, in fact, not uncommon. Whew. So, whereas people with anorexia have a need for power over food/eating and manipulate it by not eating, I have done the opposite since I can remember...for years and years. When I have been out of control, this is what I have done. That, and I had the sense of stuffing down feelings, stuffing down things I didn't want to think about. It was a welcome distraction and it felt good in the moment. Oh, but then the guilt.

That guilt is overwhelming. Just almost a blinding pain, when it really sinks in. So disappointing and it just fueled that self-pity, self-shame and the anguish of feeling caught in a web that I created and was now out of my control. I had become truly out of control.

I feel freedom now like I haven't in years. Last week was nearly like a detox week for me--I really had to focus on not just one day at a time, but sometimes one hour at a time. With God's help, I made it through my first week and felt pretty great--I knew I hadn't lied to myself, to God, to anyone about my food choices, and I enjoyed eating and moving a little bit more. I began to feel some freedom I hadn't felt in a long, long time.

You might be interested to know that I actually lost 9 pounds last week. Nine! That just shows how out-of-whack I was before I started Weight Watchers and made this commitment. Holy moly, people! NINE. I wasn't expecting, nor will I expect in the coming weeks, that kind of loss in that amount of time. I attribute this weight loss to simply the drastic changes in healthy living that I made, suddenly, and my body's (over?) reaction to those changes. But I will not look a gift horse in the mouth, friends. I'm pleased with this jump-start.

My husband and I spoke for a bit yesterday and he was so encouraging and happy for me. He started to talk about what could happen in my journey in a year's time, but I stopped him. I cannot focus on an entire year. I can't really think about next week, even, or really even tomorrow. This applies to the big stuff in our lives right now--my health journey, and his deployment. I cannot think about this "big picture," but just here and now. Just today. I cannot handle any more than that. He totally understood. He loves me so. I'm so blessed.

Well, anyway, here we are in Day 2 of Week 2...just coffee thus far, but plans for a quick breakfast before heading to church. So, ciao for now! (Chow for now, maybe?)

Weight Watchers, Week One

By the grace of God, I have begun.

Pretty glad to have joined WW on Saturday. Not that I'm excited--I maybe should be, but "excited" isn't the right word for how I feel. I have come to rely on food to make me feel better, and have had quite a past with my weight gain/loss/gain again, so I suppose I feel apprehension and trepidation alongside forward-thinking ambition. I want to save my life. If for no other reason, at least for the sake of my children. For that matter, for my family. For my God. I don't like that I am the fattest person in my group of friends, in my family, in many of my groups. It hurts. I'm ashamed. But all of this sometimes has not been enough for my motivation. Sometimes there is just a dense fog in my brain and heart, just keeping me isolated from the things that should motivate me and inspire me. It's times like that that I feel like such a failure. I don't want this anymore. I want to be free of it.

Anyway, so. I started Saturday! I went to the meeting, I felt great, I was happy to go. I was welcomed warmly by some who knew me from before...over 100 lbs ago, too. So here we go. Fresh start, fresh attitude, a renewal. A reawakening. Very appropriate for Eastertide, I would say! A Season of renewed hope and birth. This is the birth of my new life. I want to live.