MFP Is Changing, Time For Reflection (60lbs down)

(tw throwing up, not intentional or deliberate)

"Beginning Nov 1, 2019, the free version of the diary will only save data for the last two years," my inbox tells me. Oh, word? I have been on MyFitnessPal since 2011. Sporadically, I entered data in 2014, 15, 16, 17. Began taking things seriously at the beginning of July, 2018.

MyFitnessPal underestimates my willingness to shove things into an Excel spreadsheet. You think I won't type out 381 entries worth of dates and pounds? I eat archived research for breakfast (or a yogurt, tryna stay on track).

381 entries, creating a similar effect to my life flashing before my eyes. 2011. I am a teenager. My mother has handed me her copy of the Scarsdale Diet. I fucking hate grapefruit. I'm hungry.

1. I have moved for college and I walk everywhere. I have no money, so I eat the terrible, terrible cafeteria food. I am not vomiting on purpose, but I am vomiting regardless. Weight comes off. I write about it. Some time passes. I get money. Weight comes back on.

I cringe at the gains over the years and watch myself lose a handful of pounds in 2017, when I'd first made a conscious effort to lose weight. I was hungry all the time. I ate a lot of white rice. I didn't know how protein worked.

I compare my weight gain with important times in my life. I gain weight around holidays, deadlines, start dates. I gain weight in the winter. I gain weight in the summer. My weight fluctuates over and over and over. I gain more each time.

July, 2018. I am the heaviest I have ever been. I dutifully log for a month. This is my longest streak ever, I think, typing the numbers into Excel. The numbers jump back and forth until the middle of August, when I am stubbornly lighter than I was before. I, sitting in this body now, am shocked that I was that determined, especially without immediate results.

By November, 2018 I have made real progress. I giggle at my weight jump around Thanksgiving and remember how frustrated I was at the time. The graph I have made to visualize this journey indicates a slight tick up. It doesn't matter, not in the long run. My progress is obvious.

February, 2019. I am a firm advocate for the non-linear progress of weight loss by this point, but I hadn't realized just how obvious this was until logging numbers. One less. Two more. One half less. Stay the same. Stay the same. Stay the same. Two less. Stay the same.

June, 2019. Onederland. Peace. July, 2019. Out of Onederland. Frustration. August, 2019. Onederland. Redemption.

September, 2019. Out of Onederland. Despair. Resolution.

October, 2019. Onederland, and then some. Vindication.

I have lost 60 pounds in 14 months, give or take a Christmas. My progress was not linear. I was dedicated. I knew, when I struggled day 1, day one 100, day 250, that I was playing the long game.

Consider converting your MFP data into an Excel spreadsheet and ruminating over every single number. The progress is there, the struggles are there. (And if you do, do it soon, because you've got less than 12 hours before it disappears!)

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