When things go wrong as they sometimes will;
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill;
When the funds are low, and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but have to sigh;
When care is pressing you down a bit -
Rest if you must, but do not quit.

Success is failure turned inside out;
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;
And you can never tell how close you are
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit -
It’s when things go wrong that you must not quit.

I’m sure most of you out there at some point in your life have seen, heard, pondered, or considered the words of this poem by an unknown author or if you haven’t i’m sure right now you are considering the words and how they might apply to your life.  I’ve never considered myself a “quitter” by any stretch of the imagination because I’ve always felt like the things that are the most important to you are worth fighting for so I’ve found myself reflecting on this poem often throughout difficult times in my life.  I remember hearing this poem for the very first time when I was a teenager at a time in my life when everything seemed so impossible and every road no matter which one I took seemed like an uphill struggle….as a teenager I wanted to quit really badly….to say “screw it” and “screw you” to every single person out there…..but here I am as an adult still trudging and still not quitting…the problems may be more adult compounded but in many ways they are still the same.

I confess that I have been failed tragically on my diet since I quit Jenny Craig because of the cost.  I naively thought that I had it all figured out and that it would be “easy” but as we all know….old habits do not die easily.  I have gained back about 10-12 pounds of what I lost which infuriates, disappoints, and challenges me all at the same time.  I somehow managed to keep it to just 10-12 pounds and for that I am grateful….I have had an ability to gain 5 pounds in one week so I am not permanently damaged by gaining 10 pounds back just kind of down in the dumps about it.  I remember back when I first started this blog I swore up and down that I was not going back to 390 pounds ever again and I maintain that thinking even now….which is why I have big news that will like stir the pot of some of my readers but ultimately it is my life to make important decisions and I am here now making a big one…..

I have decided to pursue the process of weight loss surgery as a possible solution to the obesity problems I’ve battled for years.  What does this mean?  This means that I have not made a decision about having the surgery or not having the surgery except that I am opening myself up to the possibility of the surgery by starting the referral process.  I have decided that since the waiting period is just over one year in Ontario to have the surgery it gives me ample time to continue losing weight and then decide if the surgery is for me or not after meeting with doctors and hearing/learning more about the process.  I will tell you that at this point I am leaning heavily towards having the surgery but I can say in the same breath that the possible complications of the surgery are frightening and anxiety provoking.  I plan to keep moving forward with diet and exercise….in fact I’d love to be about 275 if I have the surgery because obviously the smaller you are in weight the less possible complications you have during surgery. I feel like if I got to 275 and the surgery helped me lose the last 100 pounds I’d be in a pretty good place weight wise at least.  I hope nobody will panic or freak out about this…trust me when I say I am still in the very early planning stages of this….still weighing the pros and cons and gathering information….

I just can’t be 390 pounds again ever.

The next step for me is to focus on diet and exercise and talk to my doctor at  my physical in January about a referral for surgery..at this point I’m not even sure she’d be supportive although she’s usually very supportive of anything I decide.  I’m also planning a phone call to my friend Lyn who had the surgery a while back to feel her out about her thoughts and opinions…it’s just a matter of finding time away from my kids to have the conversation because I just don’t want them to be eavesdropping on that conversation.  I have a lot to think about..and I’m not making any New Years resolutions that have to do with weight – I refuse…..I just want to do…to move forward, keep losing but explore this possibility with serious consideration and either eliminate it as a possible solution or embrace it.

One thing is for certain….regardless of my decisions I still need all the support I can get!

Sometimes when things are not going as planned during my weight loss journey I find myself looking for something, anything that will tell me that what I’m doing….the choices I’m making…. are still making progress. It’s been a rough couple of weeks filled with the ups and downs of life – there is so much weighing on my mind but I think I’ve managed to keep my cool despite it all.  The old Melissa would have binged about a hundred times by now and I’d have likely gained back 20 pounds in three weeks…and YES it is possible believe me it is.  Work has been relatively calm where my clients are concerned but the hours have been long and the shifts many so that has pulled my focus a little bit but I am not making excuses I am just reminding myself about why things have been all sorts of crazy. Despite the struggles…through these hard times I am grateful for the following things….

2 weeks ago I pulled out the pair of jeans I wore on my first day with the husband and oh my they fit! They were a little bit snug but definitely fit! I never imagined that I would ever fit back into those jeans…certainly not two children and a completely different body layout later.  I can’t wait until they fit well enough that I would be able to survive wearing them for an entire day….but WOOT they fit!  Totally fit – I mean no hangers or laying on beds was involved!  They just did right up….as if they were meant to do just that. 

Last weekend we took a trip to Ontario Place and we were set up by a friend of the family with fantastic free play all day passes which was great and all but I knew it was pretty much useless to me because I just dont’ do the rides.  Over the years I’ve made excuses about why I didn’t go on the rides “I don’t like heights” which is true but this doesn’t really come into play when I ride a roller coaster – “I get sick on rides”…..ok so this is also true although I don’t get sick on all rides just the spinning in twelve different direction kind of rides.  The honest truth of the matter is that I realized that I was likely too large to fit in any of the rides at many of the different theme parks around and even if I could fit…the anxiety that would come with trying to see if I could fit..only to be told in front of a line of people that I was too big….was just too much for the effort. 

I like rides….

Rides just don’t like my body.

There’s a ride at Ontario Place called the Wilderness Adventure Ride where you and several other people sit in a boat and swirl and whirl down along a watered creek pathway splashing and swooshing all the way up until the final drop from a high hill that results in a bunch of people getting wet – you know these kind of rides right?  I LOVE this ride and so as usually I tried to hide my anxiety and disappointment about not going on it while all the other people in our groups including my four year old son climbed on board and took the ride for a spin.  I was sitting with my mom and watching – pretending like it didn’t matter that I wasn’t on that ride – acting like it was no big deal…but it was a big deal – I wanted on there so badly.  At one point my mother said “Melissa you should go, look at those two people waiting in line they are bigger than you are”…..you know you kind of blink twice or maybe three times when someone says that “they are bigger than you are” because I’m just not use to people being bigger than I am…I am always the biggest, it’s just always felt that way for me.  I of course snapped back with a “no way are they bigger than me Mom….rolled my eyes and watched one of the ride boats barrel down beside us with those two big people inside.  My mom made comments about me seeing myself bigger than I am and then when the family got off the ride Danny my mother’s husband said the same thing….and before I knew it I was dragging myself into a line-up and my mind was just doing a whole lot of rapid anxiety thinking. 

Shit.

What am I doing here in this line with all these skinny people?

I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about getting out of that ride about 800 times in the fifteen minutes it took us to get on and board the boat…and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t imagine the boat sinking with the force of my weight when I sat into it….but my gosh didn’t I just fit right in there with extra room?!?!  I mean obviously you can tell because i’m sitting here writing this that the boat didn’t sink….and seriously all hell broke loose within me – I was smiling ear to ear when I got off and then proceeded to go back on it again….

I would have written that boat all day long if I could. 

It was such a victory for me in a lot more ways then I ever could have imagined.

It was a much needed refreshment during a time of ups and downs for me…and I’m so glad I took the plunge and tried it….

Almost as glad as I am that the boat didn’t sink.

I have no shame in sharing my views about food as an addiction because I know first hand how my own addiction has affected my life over the years.  I have had times in my life where I have hit extreme lows and times where I’ve stood triumphant over the addiction and lost some but  not all of the weight only to be knocked back down and taken hostage for a little while longer.  Each and every time that the addiction has won…..I have had something or other go wrong, difficult, confusing, or any other negative emotion you can imagine….and each and every time the only friend “food” has been there waiting for me….offering it’s familiar safety and comfort.

I have vowed “not this time” several times on this blog since I first began it and I swear that I will maintain my positionning that I will never be 390 pounds again…not ever….that possibility just does not exist in my realm of possibilities….so I am here now at 1:45 am when sleep does not find me to share the struggles of the past week and a half.  My 18 month old daughter caught some crazy virus that made her horribly sick this past week with fevers of over 105 degrees F and ulcers all inside her mouth, cheek, tongue, between her teeth, etc.  I can not tell you how much it rocks my world when one of my children get sick…..I ache for them, want to make everything better, and I hate that out of control feeling when you can’t do anything….like you’re driving a car and someone else is holding your foot down hard on the gas….you’re barelling towards this huge car accident but you can’t do anything to stop it….someone else has to take their foot off of yours in order for it to happen.  As the illness progressed, the fever and ulcers got worse and in response she wasn’t eating, drinking, sleeping and her level of pain was so intolerable that she was screaming and crying all day long…..and eventually we had hospital visits, weight loss, IV’s and ohh so many out of control feelings for Mommy.  I guess somewhere along the way it became impossible to get away from the hospital and we started eating out whatever we could get our hands on, and then there was the late night snacking at night during the times when she was drugged and sleeping……a time to console myself I suppose but I didn’t want to do it….it just happened and it shocked the hell out of me….after several days I finally took a step back and said WHAT THE HECK is going on…..

I realize how stressed I was…..

I had not slept in several days….

My stress and anxiety levels were high….

And I ate all of my emotions instead of letting myself feel them, experience them, and then come to terms with them and move on.

I think this is the part that I’ve forgotten over the years…..your emotions are not always the most comforting things but you have to come to terms with them and MOVE on…move on and be the YOU that you really want to be.  The real struggle comes in being able to stand up against past negative behaviours and do something different somehow…cling to anything  you can to keep going…and so after a week and a half of being “off track” (although not TOO horribly…but just horribly enough) I am saying it out loud….

I messed up.

I got distracted away from what I was doing and that greedy little arogant bugger of a food addiction came running back in trying to take away from me what I had worked so hard to obtain over the past four months.  Well guess what tough guy?  NOT THIS TIME!  This time I am not letting you win….I have come to far and I have far yet to travel….so screw you and all your little posse of friends (guilt, shame, embarassment)…you all can just pack up your shit and hit the high road…stop pretending you have permission to be here and get your whiny little self back off to the land of double cheeseburgers and potato chips because I want absolutely nothing to do with any of you.

I messed up but it doesn’t mean that everything I’ve done is ruined.

I messed up and got sidelined for 10 days but good golly look who’s back!

Are you scared?

You should be!

I am figuring out my plan of attack, trying to take a different approach from the last time because seriously I don’t want to allow myself to feel tricked again….I’m preparing to be prepared for the next time the food addiction posse comes knocking at my door like I’m some kind of hostel that’s open 24 hours a day and offering free beds for the night, day, week, months….

Recommitting right now…. 1:58 am…..

Dear Food Addiction:  Up Yours!!

I am back from the depths of blogging depression and ready to rock the blog once again!!  I swear I had zero intentions of abandoning the blog for the amount of time that I’ve been gone and it wasn’t like I was hiding my bad diet behaviour because I have mostly been doing okay!  I just lost my funk and grew bored of my own stories and explanations about trying to change my life and since I was enjoying my very small vacation and encountering what shall now be forever referred to as “the great mini-plateau of July 2010″…I decided to forget about posting any snore worthy blog posts for a while and just enjoy the summer weather with my family.

I have so very little to update you all with because I did not have any official weigh-ins while I was gone but I did step  on my own scale from time to time and the number was just not budging no matter which way I looked at the numbers – I stayed committed and focused on the plan I had for myself through the past weeks and this past Saturday I finally went in and got weighed and the scale popped up a nice 324.4 pounds – oh the joy and bliss that was probably pretty obvious by my little squeal of delight!!  5.8 more pounds gone…plateau destroyed…AND let the games begin again.  If you are keeping track which I know many of you are….I AM …..that is 390 pounds starting weight minus 324.4 pounds current weight…..EQUALS – 65.6 horrible pounds gone off of my body!  REJOICE!!!

I will say this…..

It is hard to not see the scale changing despite your efforts and I would be lying if I wasn’t hard on myself about it.  I had moments of panic wondering why what I was doing wasn’t working and had myself convinced that I had slipped back to my old ways….but I have not!  I will not go back to them ever again and I am accepting that this is how the human body works…after 15 weeks of consecutive losses my body longed for a break – it’s on vacation and so she packed up and headed for new-mexico or maybe Hawaii who knows….but she came back and rewarded me for my committment and determination to stick it out!  I am not an advice giver…..I hate giving advice because that I know something that you don’t and that’s just not true…..but if I had to share one thing that really helped me hang in there through the past few stubborn weeks – I would say it was this picture…

I was sent this picture by my friend Suzanne and the subject of the email was titled “Please Don’t Hate Me”.  I couldn’t imagine what would be inside before I opened it up but I am ever so glad that she sent it!!  I was feeling oh so discouraged and not seeing the change in my body the way other people saw it – it was infuriating and then there was this picture….

I look at this picture and I feel sad because that is 390 pound Melissa……that is not ME…..I remember it so much though and I dont’ think I can ever forget being this person – how trapped and suffocated it feels to be stuck inside of something you never imagined yourself to be.  Even though there is sadness and discomfort when I look at this picture…..I also see a survivor.  As you can imagine I didn’t get to be 390 pounds because I just felt like being a fatty….there is so many compounded reasons for my struggles with obesity and when I see this picture I see someone who has survived much, endured what life dished out….and needed a wake-up call to refocus on what she really wanted to be in life.  I love and I hate this picture….but I am not mad at Suzanne for sending it to me…..I am grateful and it focused me and reminded me why I am doing this….

And then I see this picture…..

This was taken last weekend.

Yes!  I am hiding behind my husband…..but it is a picture of my husband and I!!  An actual real picture….I posed for it and I loved it and I just let it be what it was without panic or worry or fear that I was not going to love it.  I am smiling and I feel oh so happy to be in a picture for once because that it is me with over 65 pounds lost!!  65 pounds!  That is a big accomplishment but it was oh so hard to do and I am proud so very proud of myself for getting there!  I am not thin by any means in this picture….but I am thinner, so much thinner than 390 pounds and I cant’ wait until I can come on here and say I am 299 pounds, then 275 pounds, then 250 and then who knows what else after that!  I feel renewed this week…..

REJOICE!

I am slowly learning to love being active and it’s hard not to feel a sense of accomplishment when you keep seeing the numbers go down down down on the scale.  In the past couple of weeks my tie at the gym has become a very cherished activity and truthfully I look forward to it every day.  I’ve been trying to learn about calories in vs calories out but I’m not finding very reliable information anywhere out there in cyber world so if anyone can offer some book ideas or websites for figuring this out please do share when you can.  I realize lately that I’ve been doing much of the same when I go to the gym…eliptical, treadmill, basic strength training, and the occasional stationary bike and I think it’s time to start mixing it up a bit so that I can really focus on the target areas of my body ( stomach, thighs, chest, and under arms).  Every time I go to the gym I watch the personal trainers with their clients and try with all my might to watch the activities they are teaching but I can never seem to remember and really what good would it do anyway…..I need a personal training plan that is tailored for my needs and not someone else.  I haven’t enquired about the cost of getting a personal trainer because I remember when I first got my gym membership that it was something ferociously evil like a billion dollars or some crazy number like that….not really but it was a bit too steep for my budget and I’m really hoping that in the future the fitness club will have some kind of super buy one get one session free personal training deal – at least that’s what I’m hoping for……fingers crossed!!

In other news the humidity has hit the city hardcore this week and we are currently dealing with temperatures as high as like 110 degrees farenheit which for us Canadians is like fry some bacon on our skin hot!!  I can really feel the difference in my body this week and I know that my 330 pound self is throwing a giant temper tantrum and refusing to let go of some much-needed water….Ugg it is not a good feeling when you’re walking around as though you’ve got a giant arse elephant sitting on your chest!!  It’s weeks like these when the temperature is sky rocketing that I feel so glad to be on this journey to a healthier me….I feel how it is now at 330 pounds and I can’t imagine how it would have felt just 15 weeks ago when I was 390 pounds.  I  have never been fond of the heat which probably has a lot to do with the fact that when I was 390 pounds I could pretty much can work up a sweat by just standing up so I’m looking forward to a time when I feel so comfortable in my body…..comfortable enough to actually you know…………..enjoy the heat!!  Is that even possible? I’m quietly praying for a big old thunderstorm to help break down some of this humidity but I do confess that it’s mostly for selfish reasons like wanting to drop the excess water weight my body wants to hold onto this week.

I don’t have much else to say today except that lately at the gym I’ve been leaving with a totally la la la lovely attitude because many people have been striking up a conversation with me about the progress they’ve noticed in me since the day I got the courage to finally walk into a gym.  I am hearing stories of people on their own journeys and have been accepting lots of compliments (which ugg is so hard for me) from people I’ve never met before who have for some reason been stalking watching me!  I just feel so fantastic when I am at the gym because I know it is me being outside of my box and pushing myself beyond my comfort zone and working through some of the social anxiety that tries to hold me back from being the ME I really want to be! So yes….LA LA LA is all I feel like singing all the time when I’m there…..it just makes me feel so happy.

Nuff said.

When I was slowly killing myself one potato chip at a time back in the before times (a.k.a before March 18th 2010)….I often thought about what it takes to eat healthy and I’ve made some attempts in the past…oh so many attempts but I have always come up just short.  I have had an off and on again love affair with Weight Watchers through the years and during those times I have had minimal success and it was not for a lack of trying that’s for sure.  I counted points and looked at them half-assed upside down and every which way in my attempts to figure out the best possible method of getting LOTS of food crammed into my allotted points per day but in the end….every single time the final result was a giant FAIL.  I’m having a sort of revelation this week about my relationship with food, diets and ultimately my history of failing on diets and I’m pretty sure that the failure rate is so high because each and every time I allowed myself to just follow a pre-designed plan not realizing that those plans are “everybody” plans and not necessarily “Melissa” plans…and until I start taking the bull by the horns and arming myself with the knowledge about how the body works and what it needs to live…well I’ll just fail over and over again until I’m well…dead.

I don’t mean to be so point-blank about obesity and death but we all know that the bigger you are the harder you fall and the earlier you meet your maker….I realize that I could follow any plan until I am blue in the face and it will all be for nothing if I don’t teach myself how to do this….how to eat to live every single day of my life.  I don’t regret joining Jenny Craig back on March 18th..in fact I’m still glad that I did because it was definitely what I needed at that point in my food-addiction….the ability to give up control and just do what someone else says is right worked perfectly for me and I saw the weight fall of fast.  In the past few weeks I have waited with bated breath for the floor to fall out beneath me as I meandered in making my own food choices and tried to figure out what was going to work for me.  I have a basic guideline that was given to me by Jenny Craig which is that according to them I need to be eating around 2000 calories right now given my weight….I won’t lie – THAT number (2000) has always seemed like a pretty big number for me so I aim to eat around 1700 and then move my calories up depending on how many calories I’ve burned that day via exercise.  I know some people might have a better idea about what is ideal for calories and the whole calorie deficit thing and while I am sooo willing to learn more about this (please offer advice if you have it)…I am not sure I am ready to change up anything just about yet because I am still seeing good steady loss…but I know the loss will slow down eventually (probably sooner than I’d like) and I will have to arm myself with new education – I just have to figure out how to get it.

So for now I am still doing Jenny Craig off and on while I figure out what’s going to work for me in the long run….but I am taking risks and trying to make meals on my own and facing great success which is why I finally feel like I am eating to live…and not living to eat.  I try my best to get a good mixture of foods and stay away from most things considered “white” ….but I do eat carbs….just good wholesome organic complex carbs…not the sugar laden ones that do nothing but send me crashing into my bed feeling exhausted and bloated….I try to stick to lean protein when I can but I don’t stay away from the other stuff always – I just do what makes sense and always…ALWAYS stay within my calories.  I plan to stick it out with Jenny Craig until I reach the goal I set with them to lose 100 pounds and then after that this journey is 100% my show….all Melissa…all the time.  I have another 40 pounds to go before that happens so I have as long as it takes me to get there to figure it out….how every day is going to look….right now I’m not sure how I want it to look but these are the things that are the most important……

1.  I will continue to view my struggles with food as a battle against a raging addiction.

2.  I plan to fill my diet with clean/whole/local/healthy food choices.

3.  Exercise & activity is an absolute must not only because it’s good for my body but it makes my emotional self feel good too.

4.  I will not abandon this blog no matter what judgement may come against me for my struggles…I am done being dictated by the thoughts and opinions of others.

5.  I will eat to live……and no longer live to eat.

6. Every good choice….is a choice in the right direction EVEN if the scale is not moving.

7.  Every day is a new one – guilt and shame are not welcome here…..yesterdays decisions do not dictate today’s choices.

8.  Every now and then….do something totally nice for myself that doesn’t involve food.

In the past couple of days I’ve had a lot of friends or family members say “omg you’re looking great!  you’ve lost 60 pounds!” and I find myself staring at them blinking my eyes over and over again as though I were a dear caught in headlights.  I have the knowledge that I have lost 59.8 pounds which is pretty much 60 pounds…so they are all right on that one but I do not see the change like they see the change and it takes a lot of holding back not to say “I did lose 60 pounds but I don’t see it”.  I keep waiting for the moment when I’ll look in the mirror and be “wowed” or impressed with the changes happening in my body but so far I’m not seeing much of anything aside from maybe a little thinning in my ankles and calves but even that is stretching it for me….I’m guessing that this is the problem with being your own critic and seeing your body every single minute of every single day…you don’t get to see the change like other people who haven’t seen you for some time.

Someone has asked me recently what it would take for me to feel happy with my body…would it be 75 pounds, 100 pounds, 125 pounds, 150 pounds lost?  I guess the thing for me is that I’m not shooting for a number or a look because my aim is not to be skinny but rather to just feel better overall and know that I am doing everything I can to live the longest life possible. I do not have the capacity to view snapshots of the future and I do not know how it will feel or look to be 100 pounds lighter but I guarantee that even if I never get to a point where I feel happy with the way I look….I will always be satisfied with the hard work and dedication it took me to get to wherever it is that this journey ends. What I do know is that I would love to get to a place in my life where I am no longer in the morbidly obese category which means I need to be at a BMI of about 40 or for me more specifically I need to be about 263 pounds….so that’s at least another 67.2 pounds from where I am now…and then after that I’d like to no longer be considered obese which means I’d need to be about 197 pounds…if I can get there I think that I will feel a huge sense of accomplishment  because like I said I am not shooting for skinny….I can handle being overweight but I don’t want to be obese at all.

I do have plans to post more progress shots on the blog but I can never seem to get a picture in the right light or that doesn’t need a whole lot of photo editing to fix the contrast so I plan to try to take a couple of pictures over the next little while and share here just as soon as I can!  I am excited that at the end of this month I should be (hoping) getting my new cell phone and will finally be able to take some pictures when I’m out and about which will also allow me to start taking photos and sharing some of the actual food I am eating. I think I’m just feeling a bit depressed that I can’t see a whole lot of physical change but I know that it will come…just not as fast as I would like it too.  I haven’t bought myself any new clothes since losing 60 pounds so maybe that is it but I am trying really hard to save the money, make it through the summer, and buy myself some nice new things for the fall….mostly because I love jeans and hoodies and yoga pants and all that comfy goodness….so I’m hanging in there despite the lack of noticeable change and hoping that as time goes on I will see it too…..gosh I hope so.

Today marked my 15th week since I suddenly lost my mind came to the realization that I needed to get over 150 pounds off my body or I was going to spend the rest of my life standing on the brink of my grave until I was finally suffocated by my obesity.  I have a goal to be 75 pounds down by Labour Day and I’m feeling really excited about the possibility that I could be halfway to 150 by then…I mean halfway to 150?!?!  Come on that’s pretty fantastic right?  The hard truth of the matter is that I really need to lose just over 200 pounds but when I started a number like 200 seemed so totally unattainable but 100-150 pounds lost seemed like something I could reach for….something that even if I couldn’t get to 200 pounds lost….150 would be something to be proud of and will have changed my life drastically….so I figure that’s a good solid number to reach for.  I set the goal of being 75 pounds down after I reached my goal of wanting to be 50 pounds down by July…which I accomplished about 1.5 weeks before the deadline of that goal and I actually crossed the July 1st goal at 54 pounds down after my weigh in last week.  I tried to be realistic when I set my goal for Labour Day and I thought that losing 21 pounds between now and then was a pretty realistic goal that left a little bit of space to have slip ups, bumps, or hiccups along the way and still be able to reach it….of course I won’t feel disappointed if i lose more than 75 pounds by then but really I feel I’m on pace to hit that goal right now…unless some kind of major bump comes along of course.

Two weeks ago I made a decision not to go for a Jenny Craig weigh in because I felt it would help distance me from the obsession I had with being there, doing things their way, and feeling the NEED to purchase their crazy expensive food every week no matter what.  If you’ve been reading my blog lately you’ll know I was none too impressed with the way my missing of an appointment was handled and the phone call after phone call reminders that I needed to come buy my food really triggered a frustration within me that I had not felt since joining Jenny Craig and I really believe it was able to put me in a place that I needed to be….a place where I could be in charge…where I decided how this was going to go….a place where I called the shots and the shots I did call proved to be successful – I think that it might be called self-confidence?!?!?! This past week about 30% of my food intake was Jenny Craig food products and the other 70% was all me…..and I have to say I was really paranoid about this but in the end this is so much more than weight loss right?  This change in my life is about the big giant picture and I’m not going to learn how to live if I don’t let myself try new things and have moments where I’m not successful….that is the nature of life afterall – the way things are supposed to be.

I had planned not to buy any Jenny Craig food this week for a variety of reasons but mostly because I have a freezer full of stuff, really wanted to save the money, and because we’ve got a pretty busy week ahead and I find that when I have a busy week it is far easier for me to stick to the plan – MY plan…more specifically the plan for my entire family because big time changes are happening for all of us.  I had a lot of anxiety about this because I have a hard time telling people “no” and I continue to “feel bad” for the consultant who works on commission and is probably not making very  much money at all if her clients don’t buy the food….but last night I had this epiphany about how I paid the money in the beginning for their services regardless of how much food I buy and they are hired by me to support me and so long as I go in and weigh in with losses they can’t preach about how I need to be buying more of their food.  I won’t lie and say that there are not times when I really feel lucky to be able to just pull out a Jenny Craig meal and have my decision-making all done and over but really what am I teaching myself by doing this?  I was told when I joined up that they would start teaching me to do meals on my own when I hit halfway of the goal I set with them…well my original goal was 100 pounds to lose and when I hit the 50 pounds down I expected Jenny Craig to start teaching me how to do some meals on my own…..I inquired about this when it didn’t happen and I was told now that I wouldn’t start talking about this until I reach my goal weight?!?!  What the hell???  If there’s one thing that frustrates me to no end is feeling like I am being taken advantage of because I have done my job there…bought food every single week except for one but there were many weeks when I bought extra food – and I’m ticked, annoyed, frustrated that they would tell me one thing and then something totally different at another point along the way…I cry SHANANIGANS!!

So you might ask why I am grumbling this week…you’re probably wondering or thinking that maybe I didn’t do so fantastically with my weigh in and the fact of the matter is that my weigh in rocked and sucked all at the same time.  I had been expecting to meet with the centre director this week because my personal consultant was on vacation so when another one of the consultants called my name I was kind of surprised by this but whatever….I had only planned on weighing in this week and not buying any food because like I said I have a freezer full of it and we have a lot of plans this week that just don’t provide microwave availability.  I weighed in and she was like wow you lost 5.8 pounds this week AWESOMENESS…and I was like yeah totally awesomeness and then she asked me about the food and I explained that I wasn’t buying any food this week.  I am not kidding you when I say that I the consultants entire demeanor changed and I literally felt like nothing but a waste of her time….she closed up my file pretty fast and I left her office towards the main waiting room where my hubby and the kids were waiting for me and I kid you not…..I overheard her say in an incredibly awful tone “yeah she only just weighed in, got nothing out of that one”.   I swear I am not making that up…the mood was tense and my husband was there to witness it all…and any ounce of guilt I had for not spending money on food that week was gone in the blink of an eye as I walked out of that centre with head held high…feeling a sense of accomplishment that I did it again on my own and killed it too…..

5.8 pounds lost this week – my new weight on the record is 330.2..although this morning when I got up the scale said 288.8 at one point but I did have to put clothes on after that….

I’m not sure what the long-term forecast is for Jenny Craig and I….

But I know this…..I’m not going to allow myself to feel bullied anymore.

This is about my LIFE, not theirs…

I am the one that matters and I call the shots…

Just 15.2 more pounds to go until I reach my 75 pounds down goal.

I sometimes find myself forgetting just how large I am even still after losing over 54 pounds and it only takes a brief instant for my new-found confidence to come crashing back down to reality.  I wasn’t sure if I was going to write about this particular story that I’m about to share but I promised myself when this all began that I was going to unveil everything, hide nothing, and get real with the things in my life that cause me to be such a chaotic eater.

I am no stranger to being teased, tormented, bullied, made fun of, feeling left out, stared at, laughed at….etc……AND…..etc. I am not sharing these things in hopes that people will feel all sympathetic but because this is the reality of the situation that I put myself in by eating myself to nearly 400 pounds.  I am not trying to condone the behaviours and immature personality problems of other people but rather I am just taking accountability for the fact that I could have done something about the obesity before and I just simply couldn’t get it done which is part my motivation combined with the fact that obesity and food addiction really is a disease in the same manner that alcoholism is.  I don’t remember when exactly food started to take the place of feeling, breathing, living…but it did at some point in my teenaged years and I don’t regret it because at that point in my life amidst the chaos and uncertainty I needed something….and food just happened to be the something…..I only wish I could have been who I am RIGHT now about 10 years ago but we all have things we wish we had done differently right?

Anyway….the other day I was leaving the gym at about 11pm after an hour and a half long work out followed by twenty minutes of quiet solitude in the steam room that for some reason was filled with the wonderful aroma of eucalyptus – it was amazing and I walked out of there just feeling so fantastic.  I sometimes have these moments where I have to shake my head in confusion about who this person is and try to figure out what the heck I’ve gotten myself into…but that night I walked out into the cool summer night feeling optimistic, proud, and accomplished which is a pretty big deal for me because I am as most of the people in the world…very hard on myself.  I waited patiently at the corner for the light to change from red to green so that I could cross and make my way home with my gym back slung over my shoulder and a water bottle in my hand – gosh it felt so good to be so proud of myself – I mean I had not been able to get my gym workout in but forced myself to go at like 930 pm!  I could tell that I was feeling good because I was walking with a quickened pace and my head held high as I stepped out…..I was enjoying the cold night which is rare for us in the summer heat when all of a sudden a van pulled up in front of me and stopped….someone rolled down their window and before I knew it a twenty something young man stuck his head out and screamed “hey fat ass have another cheeseburger”….and then faster than they stopped the car…they drove away and I could hear their laughing amidst their blaring music.

It wasn’t anything that I had not heard or felt before but for some reason this particular time it really hit me in a way I had not let any sort of teasing affect me before…I could feel a sense of defeat unlike anything I had ever felt before and it was only a few more steps across the street before I could feel tears welling in my eyes.  It’s a weird feeling to go from such an extreme high…such a powerful moment of confidence…..only to be knocked down and reminded about the reality of the situation you are in.  I couldn’t figure out why I had tears in my eyes…..it wasn’t that I was crying because I felt sadness – I think I was just astonished that there are people in the world that would do this to someone else.  I can honestly say that there has never been a moment where I have deliberately done or thought out doing something to another person that would humiliate them in such a manner that these young men did to me.  I have to think that I was astonished more than anything because these things…the thought of picking on someone in such a way….just doesn’t cross my mind.  EVER.  period.

This is the hardest thing about weight loss for me because I don’t see change the way that other people do….someone will say to me “WOW I can really see that you are losing weight” and while I generally say “thank you” in response…the truth is that I am not seeing it….I am not feeling it in any special way because when I look in the mirror I still see the “really obese Melissa” instead of the “going to the gym several times a week, bike riding, walks at night, good food eating Melissa”.  I sometimes wish that I could snap a finger and be at a healthy weight and have a fresh start but then I know that I am learning so much about who I am and who I want to be by going through this process….even if it has to come with moments involving college aged men screaming insults at me as they drive by – it’s all so important….every single minute of it is helping me to learn to work through the emotions without making out with food.  I get the feeling that this change for me is going to be full of ups and downs and yes I am still fat…I am still so very fat and people are still judging me and trying to hurt me for it….but here’s the thing that I realize…..

Even if I were not fat….

It’s likely someone won’t like my hair, my nose, my big feet…..

So here’s my revelation out of this situation….

Who the hell cares what you or anybody else thinks?

I feel bad that you find joy in publicly humiliating someone for no reason except that you’re immature and lack intelligence….

But no matter how hard other people might try to interfere with what I am doing….

It can’t bring me down….not this time.

I’ve had the most emotional week of all since I began this over haul of my life 14 weeks ago and I’m thrilled to see myself making it to the end with a huge sense of accomplishment and the solid evidence that proves that MY WAY is what works best of all.

I weighed in at 336.0 pounds yesterday when I made my return after my one week jenny-cation…..In case you are not keeping up with the math, that’s another 3 pounds of weight loss and a total of 54 pounds lost so far.  There are a lot of reasons to feel content after making it through this past week but the thing I am most proud of is that I did this loss all by myself even though after skipping my Jenny Craig I still had a freezer full of Jenny Craig food.  I just had to do it this week all by myself to see if I could handle it…to see that if after 14 weeks of researching and teaching myself about healthy eating…I had absorbed some of what I had learned…..AND I DID.  I had a few things working against me this week.  First,  I had a million and one opportunities where I was tempted by bad food and for the most part I did not indulge although I did have a few doritos with some of the kids I work with but to be fair I had planned to have chinese food at a restaurant with them and that fell through when one of our kids went missing (I do counselling for children with mental health struggles)….soooo in the end that 14 doritos I ate actually ended up being a better option than the 1000 calorie chinese food dinner I was going to indulge in. So after I managed to save myself from the chinese food incident of 2010 I was feeling pretty fantastic about my weigh in until the night before when I went to the bathroom and as my husband always jokes….”my sentence had ended” a.k.a that miserable old aunt flo came to visit the day before my freaking way in – UGGG.  I’ve got to say that I was pretty upset by this and I really wanted to actually cry about it because I wanted a true REAL reflection of my weight at my weigh in ….and I was pissed that water retention and bloating had the possibility of sabotaging my efforts.

When I arrived at my Jenny Craig appointment my consultant looked ecstatic to see me and when we finally sat down to chat she told me that she only called me 800 times last week because she didn’t want me to fall off the wagon and she worried that without my food that is exactly what might happen.  The truth of the matter is that I am falling off the Jenny Craig wagon bit by bit but THIS was the plan all along – Jenny Craig was only going to be my induction into the world of weight loss until such a time came that I felt in control and educated about how I was going to get it done – I’m about 85% of the way there and I’m feeling like I’m only relying on Jenny Craig 15% of the time.  I can admit that it frightens the hell out of me to be completely responsible for all the choices and decisions but if I can’t do it now…I’m not going to be able to do it ever because I’m the most committed now…more than I have ever been before – there is no other time but now…..no day but today.  (Sorry had to steal a cheesy RENT reference…I am a music theatre groupie afterall).  I think I pretty much wowed my consultant when I got on the scale and had a three pound loss this week because I’m pretty convinced that she was hoping I would have struggled a bit without them – but struggle I did not and I feel totally accomplished.

I have said since this thing (whatever it is that I am doing) began that I was going to do it my way and no other way and I feel really glad that I’m starting to figure out exactly what “my way” is.  I find myself turning new corners and trying things I’ve never imagined myself trying before and here’s the real biggie…..eating foods I thought I hated and *gasp* enjoying them!!  In the past week I’ve tried some cold Thai wraps that had tofu in them and trust me I really wrinkled my nose up at them but ended up loving them as well as the homemade black bean burger patty that I tried – SHOCKING…I mean it just literally shocks me that I am becoming this person and that I am totally enjoying it!

So there you have it….

3 pounds down….336 pounds is the new weight.

390 no longer…..

and I did it all by myself.