TLDR: If you're trying to lose weight but gain some back or can't seem to reach your goals, you haven't failed as long as you don't give up.
One year ago today I weighed in at my lowest weight in 20 years. I was 197. It was my first time under 200 since about 14-15. I felt great, looked pretty good and was happy. For about a day. On Monday I weighed in at 248, almost exactly what I weighed 2 years ago. For the past few months I've been steadily gaining weight despite my intentions to "get back on track tomorrow" and "I'll just stick with this restrictive diet until I get back down to xx weight".
Since I was young, I've struggled with binge eating and have had a tendency towards a very healthy relationship with food. I could eat 2000 calories in 20 minutes and not even feel too full. Over the years, I've worked on getting better and starting in June 2016, I started my final weight loss attempt at almost 315 pounds. I did great. I tracked and exercised and didn't have any binges for 3 months. I got down to 275 fairly easily. Then came the standard struggle, but it was different this time. I never fully gave up. I dealt with my binges and gains and just kept believing that I could do it.
In May 2017 I weighed in at just under 250 and over the course of the next year dealt with struggles and setbacks, but by May 2018 I was down another 50 pounds and feeling amazing. I only maintained sub 200 for a couple of weeks and then started struggling again. Leading up to that time and up until recently, I tried fairly extreme diets. I could stick with them for a while and see great results. It helped me get under 200, but then it stopped working.
My relationship with food has been very unhealthy and despite knowing exactly what I need to do to lose weight, I still sabotaged myself more than I found success, leading me to weigh in again at just under 250 this May.
I have been extremely depressed and upset; I feel like a failure and a fraud. I kept thinking "I can do this" and I kept trying. It would last a day or three and then back off the wagon, no matter what I tried to do. I finally realized that my feelings of failure were causing me to sabotage myself even more. Tracking my food and weighing myself was just a reminder of how much I had failed. It was too much.
On Monday I weighed in and then removed the batteries from my scale. I confessed my struggles to my partner. I removed my Fitbit and removed the Fitbit and MFP icons from my home page. I decided to keep tracking my food, but do it on paper. I decided to keep up with my activity, but not track it. I am keeping an eye on my protein and carbs, but not limiting anything or tracking anything. On Tuesday I wanted to weigh in to get that thrill of a quick 2 or 3 pound water weight loss, but I didn't. I still want to weigh in, just to see where I'm at. I know it's only been 4 days, but I feel so much better. I still struggle with the feelings of failure, but it's not constant and it's not as bad. I've made good food choices these past few days that I haven't been able to make in months. I was able to have a couple bites of sugar cookie that my daughter offered me without feeling like I'd failed and then going crazy eating junk.
Through this I've come to realize...I haven't failed. I had a setback. I haven't failed because I haven't given up. The only way to truly fail at weight loss is to just give up completely. That was my life for years. I haven't done that this time. I kept trying and never gave up and just accepted that it was my fate to be fat forever. Calling myself a failure and a fraud held me back and was pushing me back into the mindset to just give up. Thinking about the short term I can feel horrible that I've gained 50 pounds in a year. Or I can look at the big picture - I've lost a significant amount of weight over the past three years and, more importantly, I am still here and still trying and looking to make myself better and healthier every day, both physically and mentally.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2W7xG3N
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