Learn to make peace with your body - The rebellion

What I call the "rebellion" occurred over many stages but the start of it was after the bad Weight Watchers meeting that I mentioned in the previous post.

The bad meeting happened around the Holidays last year. I managed to get to a meeting just before Christmas and, because of the Holidays schedule, it wasn't my normal day so it was a different leader. The topic was about setting a goal for yourself for the Holidays that would be reasonable and make you proud... and that could even be a weight gain... that was fine. Essentially, just as long as you were aware of what you were doing and shooting for, it was fine. Sounds like a great idea, ya?

My goal was to indulge a little and enjoy the food without guilt and even if I gained a little, it was going to be fine; I'd recommit fully after the Holidays and work really hard at it. I will skip details but, as we're sharing our goals by show of hands, the leader ended up putting me on the spot, asking why I was planning on a weight gain when I was staying home and wasn't going to have as many temptations. I don't know if my face crumbled or if she just plain realized that she had misstepped but she tried to take it back... but the damage was done. I was already feeling shaky about my efforts with Weight Watchers and was pissed off both at the change in the plan and for having been made to feel like I wasn't working hard enough when I was trying to be compassionate with myself (which is actually part of the new plan). So that sort of sealed the deal and I never went back to a meeting.

(I feel the need to add a caveat that, except for this one incident, I've always found leaders to be very supportive. This was really an anomaly but perhaps something that I needed to hear in a way.)

As I was left with a sour taste in my mouth from the disappointment of Weight Watchers not really working again and having issues finding a gym that would work for us, I realized a few things.

I had just moved to a new city where the food is, omg, so amazing! And my partner was cooking awesome dishes. However, because of Weight Watchers, I routinely had to choose between tracking accurately and not partaking in the awesome food or having the awesome food but being iffy on the tracking. Whichever decision I made, I would end up feeling frustrated.

I also realized that I was thinking about food literally all... the.... time... and it was very unhealthy for me. I was obsessing in all the ways: did I eat too much? too little? is it time for a snack or meal yet? there's this thing I'd like to eat but I can't (so it's coming back around in my head periodically)... what should I have for dinner? what can I have for dinner? You get the idea.

The nail in that proverbial coffin was during one of those moments when I was reminiscing and missing my more slender body... and I remembered that, for all that it was awesome to be able to wear whatever I wanted and that putting on a belly dance costume was much easier, it actually wasn't as awesome as I thought it would be. :o It sounds shocking but it's true.

Here, I may need to explain that I had embarked on the losing weight journey with Weight Watchers because I was feeling extremely depressed about myself and my life and I thought that my weight was the biggest issue and that, if that was taken care of, I'd be super duper happy. But then the weight fell off and I still had a lot of lows... and it turns out that weight was not the biggest culprit after all.

Not only that but maintaining that weight was extremely hard. It's very likely that my target weight turned out to be too low to be sustainable long-term. Could I really picture myself eating that way for the rest of my life? Or did that seem too much? This is when the converse of the above happened in that, all aspects of my life were awesome except that I had this obsession with food that prevented me from enjoying eating without guilt.

So I gave up on dieting and tracking. Time is short, I'm 43, I want to enjoy life, including enjoying food. Mainly, I've tried to give up on guilt over enjoying food and about eating period.

More to come again...