Obsession {Weight Loss}

I notice a pattern with all my weight loss efforts, and it goes a little something like this:

Week 1: Motivated, determined to stick to the program, exercise, give 100%.

Week 2: Feeling good after week 1’s weight loss, maybe slack a little, usually gain. Exercise.

Week 3: Coming off of week 2’s gain, I usually am even more hardcore than week 1 and lose a lot. Usually try to stay busy to keep my mind off eating. So busy, I don’t eat or exercise much.

Week 4: Excited about huge loss week 3. Reflecting on week 3, I stayed busy and didn’t focus on food. So, how much can I lose if I become obsessive and super focused about food? Usually gain. Not into exercising at all. Nope.

Week 5: Noticed that I lost, gained, lost, gained and want to quit…because, really? What is the point? Usually kinda half ass this week and see how it goes.

Week 5 is either the turning point that I gotta stick this out and DO IT. Or Week 5 is where I quit and likely end up right back where I started.

Psychotic, isn’t it?

I am in week 4. Which means I am obsessing over everything. It’s food/weight loss in my head 24/7. It’s exhausting and honestly, depressing. I don’t know how I did it when I first did Weight Watchers in 2002-2003 and I only gained once every 8 weeks or so. I was a rock star!

I am participating in the Shrinking Jeans Holiday Hoedown Challenge, and they check-in on Wednesdays. My official Weight Watchers weigh-in is Saturday. This means my Wednesday weigh-in isn’t the “official” one I use for Weight Watchers, but it is kind of the mid-week point for me, so it tells me how I’ve done from Saturday-Tuesday. I don’t expect to lose 5 pounds during that time or anything, but I don’t expect to gain either.

I did my mid-week weigh-in yesterday and I am UP 1.4 pounds from Saturday.

It’s disheartening, heart wrenching, infuriating, bleak and overall just sucks. SUCKS. I did well on Saturday/Sunday, kept my eating in check. Monday/Tuesday I did the new PointsPlus thing. And I am UP. I’ve tracked, weighed, and counted every bit of food that has entered my mouth. Granted, I haven’t exercised formally, but I did do Just Dance 2 for 1.5 hours, plus I am still painting the living room. Yes, still painting. Lord, I can’t wait to be done with it. And I am back at work this week.

Yes, I know I don’t officially weigh-in until Saturday, so who knows what the official weigh-in will look like, but I have a feeling I am going to be up. That notion really screws with my head.

I don’t know what to do. There’s a lump in my throat just writing this post because I truly do know what I need to do. I need to keep on. I need to stay positive and lose weight. I need to be healthy. That’s what I would tell any of you all, “This will pass. Keep going. I am here for you.”

And I feel like I am doing everything in my power to do just that, and the scale is just evil. Am I still eating too much? Am I not eating enough? Do I need to exercise more?

Now comes the real reason I am writing this post…this morning my co-worker offered me 2 Dexatrim Max pills, ya know, diet pills. Something I swore I’d never do after watching one too many Dateline specials of women who have taken diet pills and died.

And I took them. Yup.

Why? Well, desperation. I want to lose weight. Not overnight, but I don’t think a few ounces or a pound a week is unreasonable of me. I want the scale to reflect my efforts, and I feel it doesn’t.

I equate being thinner/smaller to feeling beautiful and being attractive. I feel neither of those right now. I am generally feeling pretty fugly most days because I feel HUGE.

There it is- my obsessive, psychotic week 4 confession. Regardless of how I feel right now, I think going through these sorts of things helps me realize I have a destructive relationship with food. I use it for comfort and gain weight; I use it to fuel my weight loss by eating the right stuff, but then I feel hungry/deprived at times. Sometimes I reflect upon why I want to lose weight for once and for all, and it’s so that I won’t have these issues with food anymore. I know maintenance will require effort- a ton, but I feel like by working on maintaining, I’ll finally see food for what it’s meant to do- sustain me. Eat to live, not live to eat, right?

God, if you read my little blog, please help me because I honestly feel I can’t go on with this loss/gain pattern. For now, I’ll keep trying my best AND hoping for the best.