Starting Again

and again and again and again

I am 62-years-old as of the time I started this substack journal and I have started a weight loss journey multi-hundreds of times. Some of you were likely there for other iterations of this journey. We all know that in reality, it’s all one big journey and not hundreds of different ones.

My first diet began in the fifth grade when I carried a pocket calorie counter book everywhere with me, determined to never go over 1000 calories a day. Since then, I have tried everything except bariatric surgery. That is not off the table for me, but I am not there yet.

I love my body and I appreciate how tolerant it has been and all it has done for me. I do not feel unattractive. I do not need to do this for anyone except me. I monitor my health carefully and by all accounts, I am in good health.

I am also, by medical definition, “morbidly obese” and have been since 1991. I gained 85 pounds that year when. my first husband and I divorced after 13 years of marriage. During that time, he frequently remarked on how out of shape and fat I was.

I wasn’t. I remember coming across yet another diet log from when my second son was eight days old. I was dieting down from 130 and I remember how absolutely frantic I was to get below 120.

When we divorced and I sank into a clinical depression that resulted in an untreated mental health crisis, I fulfilled that prophecy and gained 85 pounds. A friend of mine commented on the weight gain at the time and expressed concern. She said, “I don’t care that you’re gaining weight. I care about the sadness that is causing you to gain the weight.”

When all else fails, put a kid in front of you

From there, my weight ranged from “creeping” upward to “sprinting” upward. My ex-husband and I remarried in 1994 and in 1996, he left me for a slender woman. My weight was only one of the factors in his decision, but for me, it reaffirmed the association of “unlovable” and “undesirable” with my weight.

By the time I married my current husband in 1997, I was well over 200 pounds.

In all candor, throughout most of our marriage, my husband has not expressed his frustration over my obesity in a kind or healthy manner. In the past 2-3 years, however, he has worked hard to make up for those times and although there have been moments when he could no longer push aside his feelings about my obesity and he let those emotions overtake him. To his credit, he recovered quickly and was deeply remorseful and very apologetic. I acknowledge and understand his struggle with this just as I acknowledge and understand the further damage his responses did to me.

This is me around 2014.

This is me on Sept 2, 2023

On Sept 6, 2023

And on Sept 30, 2023

When I say I have done it all, I am talking about having a professional personal trainer for almost a year (she was a champion body builder), almost every medication or supplement imaginable (the unfortunately named AIDS - from the 1970s, Dietac, Dexatrim, Stacker - all the numbers, PhenFen, Relacore, SlimQuick, Hydroxycut, Chromium Picolinate, Apple Cider Vinegar, Tumeric, Garcinia Cambogia… just to name a few), gimmicks like Body Flex and T-Tapping, hundreds of workout videos, miles logged on daily hikes, meditation & visualization, EFT (the other kind of tapping), fasting, intermittent fasting, keto, accupressure and accupuncture, Weight Watchers, DDP Yoga, the Biggest Loser Diet, Dr. Now’s Diet, the Mayo Clinic Diet, and those are just the ones on the top of my head as I write this.

Most recently, I started taking Saxenda in February 2023. For those who do not know, this is a daily injection and yes, it does work beautifully… for a month. In that month, I lost almost 20 pounds. I then regained a bit, then lost a bit, but not much else has gone on despite the continued daily injections. Now, there is a nation-wide Saxenda shortage and I cannot get a refill. I am using the teeniest dose to make my final pen last as long as it can, then I am on my own. It has worked well to cure my adrenal fatigue and my insulin resistance and that is the best part of it.

Priot to using the Saxenda, I lost around 15 pounds on my own, so that I am now down from 285 in June 2022 to a setpoint of 253.

I recently had an absolute sugar rampage, which is not at all like me. I am not a binge eater. I gain my weight from eating too much “regular” food and not eating enough vegetables or drinking enough water. This time, however, I went absolutely wild on sugar. I enjoyed the rush of energy and flavor, that’s for sure, but now I am up a few pounds from my last weigh in.

I know that “new” weight tends to come off easily for me, so I expect to be back to my setpoint of 253 within a week.

Now, I am refocusing and going at it again. This time, with Weight Watchers and strength training. I lean heavily on the zero point foods because as soon as I start to sense any kind of deprivation, my body and brain starts to freak out in this panicked resistance. I do not want the feeling or the cortisol that comes from that, so I am taking day by day, trying to rack up successful days behind me. I am now on successful day #3 and no longer feel like I am white-knuckling, so I am (again) hopeful.

I am arguably successful in pretty much every other part of my life. I am happily semi-retired. My six kids are out in the world living their lives. Eric and I have a great life here on the mountain and I have few demands on my day. I love the jobs I do in the world and I completely love my life. I do not eat out of any kind of lacking. I eat because of learned responses from prior traumas that imbedded in me and do not want to let go. Or maybe a part of me doesn’t want to let them go.

This journal will explore some of the nutritional and practical things I have learned about weight loss and specifically, how my body loses and gains weight. I will also talk about some of the psychological aspects of my weight gain.

This is not a pretty topic, but it is a hopeful one. It gets dark and it gets weird, but I am - for now, at least - determined to keep going. I would love to get to a place where I can easily go up and down stairs and run for the trains in London some day. That is going to take some work.

Subscribe or don’t subscribe. This is for me and if anyone decides to accompany me, they are welcome to do so. My understanding is that if you subscribe, my frequent updates get sent right to your inbox. I imagine I will sometimes do video journal entries as well.