I think sometimes that my body is fighting against me. Someone said to me yesterday that they can’t imagine not being on a diet for the rest of their life. In thinking about it, I have to agree somewhat. While I don’t plan to be on a diet for the rest of my life, there’s no doubt in my mind that I will have to watch what I eat and monitor myself and my body. Even after achieving success and maintaining for numerous years, I am still careful. I still weigh my food, I still step on the scale every morning…I can’t imagine a day that I don’t do those things.

 

My life has changed in that I do allow myself splurges now, but anyone who knows me will hear me say time and time again “It has to be worth the calories for me to eat that.” So, that being said, whatever I am splurging on, usually something chocolate or something fried, it has to taste really good and it has to be worth all of the effort that I put into working out, in order for me to eat it. If I take a bite of some dessert that a waiter just told us was absolutely amazing and it is not absolutely amazing, then I don’t eat it. I also have a glass of wine or two a couple of times a week….almost always red, almost always Pinot Noir, it’s the best wine to help boost your HDL.

 

So all that, my body will very, very easily put weight on. It’s hard as hell to take it off, that’s for sure, but it is oh so easy to put it back on! I’m sure that anyone who has lost weight will agree with me. When I first met my honey, I remember him telling me that when I was done, I’d be able to eat like a normal person, I disagreed with him back then and now he sees that my body is not the same as anyone else’s body. In fact, I believe that we all have bodies that are different. What works for someone who might have been “normal” all their life and what works for me to maintain a normal body weight as so entirely different. According to the so-called experts, a woman my age who is active should eat 2,200 calories a day! My goodness! If I ate that many calories a day my weight would skyrocket in no time and I could easily gain 5 lbs in a week. No, I am not exaggerating, my body holds onto weight very easily and then it’s a fight to get it off. I have my own theory and it’s that my metabolism is so screwed up from a childhood of obesity and over-eating, eating for self love and then the opposite when I was older, to only eating once a day. As a result of overeating and then throwing my body into starvation mode, combined with being overweight my entire life, my theory is that my body was comfortable with itself when I weighed over 350 lbs…I’m not saying that I was comfortable, but my body was.

 

So, the question is “Does my body want to be fat?” I don’t know the answer to that, sometimes I feel like it does. But I do know what I want and I know that I will continue to weigh my food when I make it, I will continue to step on the scale every morning and I will continue to work out. I’ll watch what I eat and will allow myself a splurge when the feeling hits me and yes, I’ll make sure it’s worth the calories. All of it is well worth the effort put in and I highly recommend it to anyone who is thinking about starting a weight loss journey.

 

One thing to remember when traveling this road is to keep your eye on the road in front of you, focus on the here and now. Forget about what happened yesterday, you can’t change it, you can only learn from it. Concentrate on what you do today and on making your goal a priority. It’s OK to make yourself and what you want to achieve a priority, so often, as women, we put ourselves last and make everyone and everything more important than ourselves. If “we” don’t take care of “us” then who is going to?