Introduction
Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. -Arnold Schwarzenegger
We all wish that the road to our goal weight could be freshly paved, straight, flat, and clearly marked with new paint. And if we could have a detailed, easy to read map that would show us exactly what to do at each fork in the road, it would also be greatly appreciated. Unfortunately, the actual road is made out of dirt which sometimes turns to mud, with steep hills, hairpin curves, and potholes and obstructions all along the way. Once in a great while, the road straightens out and everything gets easier until the next thing you know, you’re deep in a dark forest and the road seems to have disappeared out from underneath you. You find yourself wondering how to proceed, or if you even want to.
There’s a reason they call it the weight loss journey. It’s an adventure, filled with missteps, snafus, and occasional triumphs. You’ll lose weight, gain weight, overeat and maybe even emotionally eat, but if you hang in there, you’ll figure out what works and you’ll reach your weight loss goals. The journey doesn’t end there, though. The day you reach that milestone is the first day of the next leg of your journey, wherein you endeavor to keep it off for good. Thus, this is literally a journey of a lifetime. It is a mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual challenge. The good news is, all that’s required of you is all that’s required on any journey: that you keep putting one foot in front of the other.
The purpose of this book is to prepare you mentally for the obstacles you will face, a roadmap of the hazards of a weight loss journey, so to speak. Of course, since you are a unique individual with your own unique life and unique challenges, this roadmap won’t be the same as the detailed directions you’re used to getting from your smartphone. Most of the time the obstacles come up when you least expect them. My goal in writing this book is to prepare you so that when you do come up on these roadblocks, you’ll know it’s a normal part of the journey. In the chapters that follow, I am going to talk about all the discouraging things you’ll likely go through, because they’re all the discouraging things I went through. My hope is that if I share with you all the ways I failed, struggled, but ultimately succeeded, you’ll feel less alone. I hope I can show you that if I can do it, you certainly can too.
Successful weight loss is a process of figuring out how to lose weight, changing your behavior, and most importantly, figuring out how and why you became overweight in the first place. It takes a lot of time, introspection, and effort to get to the bottom of it all. Sometimes things will go well, and it will feel easy to keep on going. But, there are also going to be plenty of times when things go terribly awry. You’ll hit a plateau that seems to last forever, or you’ll find yourself mysteriously bingeing on chips and cookies after you’ve finally started making progress towards your goal weight. It is in those moments when you’ll be tempted to quit, to turn around and head back toward the relative comfort of the life you knew, even if it was slightly miserable.
But it’s those hard moments that will teach you the most and make you stronger. You learn and grow very little when it’s going well. Of course, you’ll find very little consolation in this fact when you’re actually going through the aforementioned hard moments. You’ll feel like you want to throw away your plan, throw yourself a pity party, and go on an eating spree. Each time you choose instead to fight your way through, over, around, or under an obstacle, you get a little more powerful and a little more resilient. If you just keep pressing forward, you will get to where you want to go.
I have faced my fair share of troubles on the weight loss journey, and I continue to face them in maintenance. I have struggled through every single stage, from getting started when I was obese, to getting down to a healthy weight, to keeping it off. I have messed up, self-sabotaged, and wanted to call it quits more times than I can count. And yet, I keep on going and have maintained at a weight I am happy with. Yes, weight loss is hard, and yes, it can sometimes drive you crazy. You’ll cry, you’ll get mad, and you’ll screw up a lot. And yes, it is worth every ounce of effort, when you do it for the right reasons.
This book is divided into four parts:
- Part I: Traits to Cultivate
- Part II: Obstacles Before Starting
- Part III: Obstacles During Weight Loss
- Part IV: Obstacles During Maintenance
In each chapter, I’ll describe what each obstacle looks like and steps you can take to overcome it. I am also including a case study at the end of each chapter based on my personal experience with that particular challenge. I am only one woman, but I hope that by sharing what I went through and how I overcame it, you’ll be encouraged and maybe even learn from my mistakes.
I’ve put these obstacles in the general order I first faced them on my journey, but you may find they show up earlier or later for you. You might get lucky and never have to face some of the ones I did. You also might find, like I did, that the obstacles you face pop back up over and over again. You might get your emotional eating under control while you’re losing, but then find yourself challenged again with it in maintenance. Or, you might conquer your fear of success early on, but find that it comes back with a vengeance when you actually hit your goal weight.
Remember that you’re human. Sometimes you will throw that pity party. You might even turn yourself around and start marching back to where you started. Even if you march so far that you find yourself farther away from your goal weight than you first began, you always have the option of making another u-turn, coming back to face the obstacle, overcoming it, and continuing on the road. You’ll make faster progress if you don’t ever turn back, but that’s beside the point. No matter how badly you screw up, you can always get back on track.
Before we continue, I want to emphasize a few things. I’m not perfect. I’m a flawed human being, just like you. Even though I’m a few years into maintenance at this point, I don’t have it all figured out. I make mistakes, learn from them, and iterate as I go along. I’m not a nutritionist, a doctor, or a therapist. This book is not intended to be a substitute for medical or mental health advice. If at any point you find yourself in need of professional help, seek it out immediately. You are worth it. What follows is based on my own experience. Consider it a case study in not quitting on the weight loss journey.
My Timeline
Never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about. -Winston Churchill
It might be helpful for me to share my timeline with you, so you have a sense of my history with weight loss:
- 1990 – 2000 (ages 6-16): Chronic dieting, including diet pills. Periods of being overweight, some periods of weight loss, rare periods of maintaining.
- 2001 – early 2004 (ages 17-19): Maintained a healthy weight.
- Mid 2004 – early 2014 (ages 20-29): Weight starts to tick up due to being newly married, dealing with my husband’s deployment to Iraq, and then three subsequent pregnancies and chaos of raising three kids. After the birth of my third child, I was aware I had gained weight, but refused to weigh myself.
- 2014 (age 29): Tagged in Facebook photos and was confronted with my obesity. This was my “I’ve had enough” moment. Started trying to figure out how to lose the weight while still eating the food I liked, and keep the weight off forever.
- 2015 (age 30): Weighed for the first time in years. 222.5 pounds. Started weighing myself and going to the gym every day. Experimented with intermittent fasting. Lost 20 pounds, but then plateaued and started to regain towards the end of the year. Almost quit.
- 2016 (age 31): Started intermittent fasting consistently and walking six miles a day. Lost down to 157. Began maintenance in November.
- 2017 (age 32): Maintained seven day average weight between 157-163. Started YouTube channel about my weight loss and decided to lose a few more pounds.
- 2018 to present (ages 33-35): Lost down to 142 by October 2018 and entered maintenance again. Currently maintaining in the 140s, though my 7 day average has been as high as 152 (which is still in the normal BMI range for my height). This period has been the most emotionally rewarding one, because I finally got to the root of a lot of my weight issues.
Before we go any further, let’s get something straight. My numbers don’t matter. I lost down to a random number. I choose to maintain in that range because it seems right for me. You might find you feel best in a higher range, or a lower one. You are in charge of picking your own range and figuring out your own reasons. I hesitate to include my numbers at all. It’s easy to fixate on the number and forget to focus on the important stuff. I’m including these numbers to give you an idea of how my journey has looked so far, and the numbers tell at least part of the story.
In case you were wondering, the important stuff has been:
- Getting to a point where my body doesn’t physically hold me back from doing what I want to do
- Learning to love and accept my body and myself
- Stopping my emotional eating
- Stopping my overeating
- Being at peace with food
- Letting go of my perfectionism
- Facing my fears
- Gaining confidence
- Becoming a consistently active person
- Understanding myself better
- Learning to say what’s on my mind
- Learning to keep my promises to myself
When I was obese, my excess weight was making me miserable, physically and mentally. I would lie down on my back, and I had trouble breathing, which scared me. It also added a constant, nagging stress to my life. A continuous loop was playing in my head. I have got to get this weight off. I have got to figure this out. I don’t want my kids to end up like this. I’m not enjoying my life as much as I could. I would make a trip to Wal-Mart with my kids to get groceries, and by the time we were finished, the walk across the parking lot back to the car seemed like a daunting task. When we got home, I was exhausted and cranky. It was difficult for me to imagine doing anything much more adventurous than that. This was upsetting.
When I was a kid, I dreamed of roaming the world and going on far off adventures. Instead, on the rare occasions where we did do something more daring, like going to Sea World, my thighs would chafe. The friction caused my skin to blister and then break open, exposing the raw skin. Each step I took afterwards was excruciating. So much for adventure.
My journey to a healthy weight has been difficult. In hindsight, I can see the hardest moments taught me the most about myself. It was in overcoming the obstacles that I became stronger. And even though stumbling blocks continue to appear, with each one I overcome I get a little more sure of myself, and I become more resilient. Even better, the confidence I’ve gained has bled into other areas of my life, creating a positive upward spiral of sorts.
Nowadays, I feel better than I ever have in my life. I have more than enough energy to keep up with my kids. I am maintaining my weight in the normal BMI range, and I eat what I like. When I go out on my routine six mile walk, I don’t chafe. When I get back home, I lie down on my bed, flat on my back, and breathe easy. For the past couple of years, my family and I have been travelling full-time across America in an RV, something I would never have considered as an option when I was obese. In short, I am no longer holding myself back from living the life I have always wanted to live. My work on myself isn’t finished, nor do I ever expect it to be. It’s been quite a ride so far, and I plan to keep on truckin down this road.
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