I've Been At This For A Year

It was almost a year ago exactly that I sat on this very couch and wrote my first blog addressing weight… specifically my weight, and my discontent with my current health, and my frustration and uncertainty as to what to do about it.

I would fight it… and fight it… but in time I would finally decide I had no choice but to jump in both feet. It’s been a daily battle, a daily journey every day since. It’s been a daily choice to choose to be healthy and rejoice in all I’ve gained or to choose to wallow in sorrow over all that I’ve lost.

My whole life I have battled my weight. My whole life I have juggled between a thirty to forty pound high and low weight, always on either one end or the other… very rarely am I somewhere in between. All in - or all out.

If you’ve known me longer than five years… you’ve have watched me cycle though this at least once… possibly twice. Typically it’s about a three to five year cycle. I let myself go… the weight slowly creeps back on… first three pounds… then five… then a week or two later it will be up to ten…. and I’ll give up and will be up another ten or more within the next month. I’ll hover in this state of disappointment and frustration for a while, a long while... years sometimes... and then finally decide to get my poop in a group yet again, and begin the battle and fight those scale numbers downward yet again.

It always takes me a while to get going… to convince myself… to convince my body it’s time to “do it again…” And once I’m back on the bandwagon… I’m all in. It’s all or nothing… do or die… black or white.

No cheating, no rest, no skipped workouts, no if’s ands, or buts. It’s go big or go home time. I’ll gain back the control, I’ll take back the wayward reigns of my mind and willpower and zone in. And yes, I know I’m on the obsessive compulsive side of it all as well.

I’ve also come to know it’s not going to last… it never does, or at least never has in the past. Yes, it will last for a little while, maybe a year or so if I’m lucky… It will be great and glorious for a little while… and it will almost even be easy and fun for a little while. I’ll be all on board, all hands on deck, all miles in the training program for a little while.

And then one day I will wake up and the tides will have turned inside me. I’ll be tired. I’ll be weary. I’ll be hungry. I’ll be weak and emotional. I’ll choose sleep over exercise, I’ll choose bread over berries, I’ll choose chocolate over carrots.

I’ll choose to start giving in and I’ll choose to start giving up.  I will choose to start quitting.

And so the landslide will again begin. One Tuesday I’ll weigh in and gasp at the six pound gain. I’ll begin the battle in my mind, begging myself to hang on a little longer… keep at it a little longer… remain diligent a little longer. I’ll swear to myself up and down that it’s still soon enough to stay in control, I can still re-lose those six pounds and continue onward. I’ve slipped but I haven’t completely fallen just yet.

Then I’ll talk myself into skipping the next few weigh ins… knowing I’ve made a few more poor choices over that time, knowing the scale number will not have decreased. I will fear the number that will show… I will fear the numbers I’ll have gained. We are the only ones wearing our weight… we know when we’re in control and losing… and we know when we’ve lost control and are gaining. We know when single digit gaining turns into double digit gaining.

And once I start to gain… time and time again, that becomes the point when I throw in the towel and give up. I fight it tooth and nail, but never hard enough… never long enough… and I quit.
My entire life since the age of thirteen every single morsel of food that I have put in my mouth has been a battle between want and willpower. My willpower is seasonal at best. It longs to be permanent, but my willpower is weak… so very weak… it hangs on and throws a few good punches, and then it will simply tuck tail, turn around, and briskly walk away, slipping quietly back into the black shadows of the night. It will retreat back to where it’s most comfortable, most hidden. I will call for it, looking, seeking, searching, wishing, watching, begging, pleading with it to return… but it will remain hidden, retreated, unreachable for the next few years.

And then it will all cycle again. Time after time after time this has proven the cycle of my life and my weight. All my life my weight and self image has been foremost in my thoughts, eating and willpower forever a vivid and raging battle within. I’ve allowed it to define me, and I can't tell you how many times I’ve allowed it to control me, allowed it to rule me.

It’s been nearly twelve months since the start of my last “shift in seasons” with my weight. It’s been about six months, maybe a little less, that I have been at this current weight. I have battled, I have diligently worked really hard to get to where I am at, and to continue on, to maintain where I am currently at.

Where I am currently at, is where I would love to be forever.  Well, where I was currently at last week anyway… a week and a half ago to be exact.

I honestly thought that my mindset was that of celebration, of praise, of gratitude of returned health. Perhaps it was still merely a mindset of self-serving perfectionism, which makes me sad. Maybe I haven’t won anything, maybe I haven’t learned or overcome anything.

Maybe I’m still the same forever messed up rollercoaster dieter that I have always been, and always will be.

Yea… that thing has happened again… that mind shift, that waking up no longer wanting to play the game, no longer wanting to battle the demons, war the willpower, combat the cookies, fight my body to go beyond what it did the day before. I’m again at the precipice of wanting to jump ship and quit entirely. Walk away completely. Be done entirely.

It's. just. so. damn. hard.
I’m in the early stages of again battling and pleading with my willpower to please just stay just a little longer. I’ve worked so hard, I’ve come so far… and here I am yet again… ready to lose it all… lose it all by gaining it all back that is.

And yes, I absolutely know and realize that my life and my worth is not defined by the number on the scale and the size printed on the inside of my pants and the amount of cellulite delicately deposited on my thighs, buttocks, and upper legs. I absolutely know and am aware that I am first and foremost a child of God, a daughter of the King, and that He doesn’t see me for my weaknesses, my failures, my negative traits… He sees me with compassion and love and grace and forgiveness. Please do not leave a mile long myriad of comments trying to explain this to me, I am more than well aware. Thank you, but no.

I am merely trying to be vulnerable, real, openly weak.  I don't want lectures, I don't want criticism, I don't want pity.  I just want to simply be honest.
I am merely wanting to openly admit that I am at the dreaded turning point yet again… I’ve been here so often in the past… I knew it was inevitably coming. I knew it would rear it’s ugly head yet again… I wasn’t sure when, but I knew it would. And sure as shit… as I near that marked one year mile marker… I feel it’s full force starting to bare down on me.

My mind is screaming, my body is rebelling, my willpower if fading. I’ve gained six pounds in the last six days. I skipped my first weigh-in on Friday, because I knew… I knew that six is now probably closer to ten. I know my pants are getting tight… I know my food and exercise choices are already falling apart.

And I know more than anything that I do not want to be standing here at this spot in the road in my life yet again. I do not want to be here, I do not want to do this, I do not want to repeat all the past failures yet again.

No, I haven’t gained it all back yet. But I have gained some… it’s started, and I’m already giving up. I’m feeling defeated before I actually am, and I’m listening to the lies and playing into the hands of great temptation and defeat before I should be.

Repeat offender… repeat patterns… repeat cycles… I’m sure I’m a classic case in any shrinks office. I’m sure I’m not alone in my feelings and inner battles, but somehow that doesn’t give me much hope… much comfort… much grace to offer myself.

I do not want to be here. I repeat… I do not want to be here again.

I do not want to quit. I do not want to fail. I do not want to gain. I do not want to lose the battle. I do not want to feel the control yet again slip between my fingers. I do not want to be weak. I do not want to continue repeating the endless rollercoaster cycle of weight loss and weight gain.

I want my body to continue to know it’s agility and shine in it’s new found strength. I want my mind to continue to win the battle over will vs want. I want my determination to remain unwavering.

I want my jeans to continue to fit. As selfish and utterly stupid as that sounds… I simply want to stay exactly where I am today… I mean where I was a week and a half ago.

I want to wake up tomorrow and grab back ahold of everything that is slipping away today. I want to wake up tomorrow with renewed vision and hope. I want to stop and turn back around before it’s too late. Because it’s not too late yet today… but tomorrow might be a different story.

Granted, I also know it’s never too late to change, never too late to jump back in the game… Lord knows I’ve jumped in and out of the game so many times… I would just really love to somehow figure out how to simply stay in the game just a little longer. Actually - I want to stay in the game more than “just a little longer” - I’m wanting to stay in the game forever this time. Really, truly, honestly… I want to finally figure out how to give up the control to actually stay in control (if that actually makes any sense at all.)

How does one get up tomorrow and actually choose a new path, a different path than the one long engrained and embedded deep to their very core? How do I choose to win this time? How do I choose to stay in the game, turn back around, regain the home court advantage, and get my groove back?

Tonight I must pray for strength, for clarity, for renewed determination. Tonight I must again lay it at the foot of the cross, across the feet of Jesus and merely trust His plans for my journey. Tonight I must again ask to be carried… I can’t do it any longer… I just can’t…

Oh carry me Lord… Carry me to… and through… tomorrow. One day at a time. One mile at a time. One step at a time. We’ve come too far together this time Lord… don’t let me go… don’t let me slip back away… don’t let me go, even when I tell you I want to.

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