I did NOT make any resolutions, however one thing I really love about the New Year, January, an upbeat calendar, and a magazine page that says "IT'S A NEW DAY!" hanging over my bathroom sink, is it's truly a FRESH START.
It's sort of like a starting line. Here I am today. Twelve months from now I get another fresh new start, (although the sign tells me I get one EACH day).............but I am taking this January to try to get myself back into my clothing that I have "outgrown."
I have been on some kind of weight program ever since I was fourteen years old, I am sad to say. Then, Twiggy made me feel fat, and I gained many pounds during a summer in Alabama where I ate grits, fried chicken, hush puppies, gravy, butter beans with real butter.......(Oh, God, it was glorious.........), on a regular basis. I returned thirty pounds heavier, and my mother said she didn't recognize me. Neither did I.
In high school, I ate the same bowl of chili and tuna sandwich every single day of my life until I had lost 38 pounds and my father told me I looked like a survivor of Auschwitz. I was elated. I was also too thin, and looked like a large head on a tiny body. (I cut my hair like Twiggy, though.)
Having delivered three children and learned how to cook, I developed a passion for Weight Watcher cookbooks, and that is how I cooked for my growing family. I also walked four miles every night, so for a number of years there was no problem other than losing "baby weight" after my children were born. I had a hypnotist who "suggested" three meals and nothing in between for the baby weight. It worked.
My children were raised on chicken to the point that we all clucked at the dinner table. 365 chicken recipes are in my file! We ate Oprah's cook's oven-fried French fries and loved them. I cooked healthy food, and my children left my home trim and slim and full of wheat bread and yogurt.
BUT, for me.................over the past ten years, in a new marriage and no children to feed........it has been a struggle. Randy brings me chocolate, and he hides pastry in the cupboards. We belong to a wine group, and we imbibe freely. There are chocolate bars in hiding places that only I know about. Good 'n Plenty boxes turn up as surprises. He knows what I like!
Five recent years of attending Weight Watchers like a religious fanatic kept the problem at bay, until earlier this year when I decided I was HUNGRY, dammit. I wanted some cheese sauce, gravy, REAL French fries, a hamburger made with MEAT, and some Mexican tortillas holding gooey stuff. I went hog-wild. No kidding. HOG WILD, like a wild hog...... I have eaten every delectable thing that my eyes encountered for the better part of the last half of 2010.
I was down to one pair of slacks that I could actually button and zip.
It's not a huge number of pounds, when I take into consideration how much I've eaten, but I knew it was there. My unused closets knew it was there, and I knew that Randy knew it was there, too.
I have to tell you that my cookbook collection probably contains a hundred low-fat cookbooks, so it was not lack of knowledge. It was lack of impetus. I actually remember thinking, "Oh well, most of America is overweight. What's the difference if I let myself go a bit, too?!"
The difference is: I DON'T WANT TO DO THAT.
Then came this New Year, the gift of the fresh starting line, and I discovered a web site that I had played around with a few months ago. I log in, and I can track my meals and snacks EASILY on it. It tells me how much I've lost, gained, and even how I'm consuming nutrients, fat, sodium, and so forth. It also measures any exercise that I might do. Pretty good stuff! I still love Weight Watchers. It's all good there. I just am tired of counting points. I needed to shift gears.
This web site doesn't yell at me or make me feel bad if I go over the caloric intake I have chosen as "ideal." It just turns the numbers RED to let me know it, like a little hint. I've been using this website for two weeks, now. (Did I mention that it's FREE? No membership, no costs, just free help.) I am not going to advertise for them right here, but I can tell you that there are several out there in Cyberspace, and I found another one that was nearly as good. I chose this one based on how many foods are in their database.
I have lost 4 pounds. I really don't want to lose too much more, but anyone who has ever been on a diet, (or a "live-it," because it's a life-long process,) KNOWS that those last few pounds are the most stubborn.
Randy and I are devout Biggest Losers fans. We cheer for our favorites, feel amazement for those people who go through all of that grueling, torturous exercise, and then get voted off the show. We have pulled our own treadmill out in front of the TV, set up the rowing machine, and have made some half-hearted attempts at working out a bit. Not my thing, but I will try.
My cookbooks are ready, and I am motivated once again! I WANT to keep up the positive eating that I've been doing for these past two weeks. Food is delicious, and I am back to savoring it, since I am not piling it into my mouth on huge forkloads lately. I sort of wonder if the last half of 2010 was a mini-vacation of sorts for me...........I think I let myself see how it felt to JUST EAT for the first time in many years without carrying the mental burden around of what it would do to my body. Alas, it DID do exactly what the magazines and my Weight Watcher leader had told me that it would do. Living in this era, how could I be surprised by this? There is no excuse, at this time, to be ignorant of nutrient or calorie content. We are saturated with information.
This has been a life-long battle for me. People have told me I didn't look as if I needed to lose any weight, but they had no clue that my slacks button was cutting into my skin, or that my pedometer, small as it is, made wearing pants difficult. They didn't see me undressed! (or WANT to, either..........)
This was not written to lecture. It is sharing one of my life's issues with you. I am working on this particular issue right now, and I suppose that I always will be. My cyber coach is helping me.
I just wish that website would make some really loud cheering noises when I log in a weight loss!
copyright: KP Gillenwater
