Being happy where you are?

this is going to be long...so just warning ya! :)

I've been reading all the stories about weight regain, wanting to lose more, panic over being unhappy with where we are and our food choices, etc. It really made me think about myself being 52, menopausal, 175 instead of 150 and the panic I have often felt the last few months. Diet head mentality was rearing its ugly head and I started to try to desperately reduce cals back to 800 and low low carb, only to binge on junk and gain a few. I knew it had to stop. I remembered a story from years back on the Weigh****cher's board.

There was this lovely woman who weighed in the 350 range and had been overweight her entire life. She joined WW and found a way she could eat she could live with and began to exercise. She was really happy and it was such a joy to read her posts. She got down to 220 and her weight came to a screeching halt. She continued to exercise and even ran a half marathon. She posted pics. She looked soooooooo happy! Beautiful smile that was infectious. Was she small? No! But she was a healthy looking girl with a beautiful face that could turn heads.

But she had an arbitrary # of 180 in her head for goal. And you could see when diet head mentality took over. She abanded her healthy eating habits and started to try all crazy kinds of things to lose. She consulted doctors, endocrinologist who specialized in metabolism, etc. The latter told her she was at goal. She had done a tremendous job and to just be happy.

She didn't listen and continued to just keep trying crazy things. Dropping her cals lower and lower...carbs lower and lower...exercising more and more. Finally she crashed big time. She went off the deep end and gained it all back.

She came back a year later to the board, heavier than before. She told folks the one thing she wished she would have done different was to be happy right where she was. How badly she wished she could just be 220 again. That's where her body was basically only going to be # wise. She wished she just would have continued to eat healthy and concentrate on fitness but most of all learn to BE HAPPY right where she was.

Remembering that story is what got me out of the diet head mentality and headlong into fitness. I could see myself becoming her if I continued to not accept and be happy with where I was.

I'm a size 12-14 and for a menopausal woman who once wore a size 24, that's pretty damn good.

So, for me... I've decided to just be happy, eat in a healthy way I can live with, accept I'm 175, work on fitness and move on with my life.

Just wanted to post this in case it might help someone else.

We're all beautiful just the way we are!

Marvelous post, Jaxxy!  Thank you so much.
--Dorothy

Thanks, Dorothy.  I just felt strongly about sharing it.  I don't post much, but it was something that really got me to "thinking" and I thought if it resonated with just one person it needed to be shared.  Especially for us 50 somethings that started a heavy enough weight that a size 6 just aint gonna happen.  LOL

I didn't want to end up at a much, much larger size, looking back at this weight with longing and regret. 

What if it's about eating and exercising with something you can LIVE with and just smiling and going on with life!  It was such an epiphany for me! :)

Yeah, when I hit 150 pounds, I knew I was where I was supposed to be, even though I am only 5'1" and was still considered quite overweight.  It was a healthy weight, though, and I maintained it easily eating protein first, veggies next, and after that little bits of whatever I wanted.  It was sooooo easy!  I was still wearing extra-larges, 14-16, but people told me I looked tiny.  Then I had a surgery with complications that landed me in a nursing home for a month.  They could NOT figure out how to feed me with my teeny tiny tummy, and I lost down to about 122.  I was skin and bones.  Once I got home, I was still sick as a dog for another couple of months and ate whatever people brought me (I live alone) and whatever I could choke down.  A lot of what I ate, both at the nursing home and for those couple of months, was simple carbs and sugary stuff.  KER-BLAM!  Sugar / junk carb cravings came back like a drug addiction, and I have been struggling unsuccessfully ever since.  Oh to be back to "happy at 150!"  I'll get there again, though.  This sleeve thing is a miracle :-)
--Dorothy

Excellent post!  We do need to love ourselves first, and be at peace with our bodies.  The goal is health after all, not a number.
Thanks for sharing.

I am so sorry that happened to you Dorothy...you'll get there again, though, just being healthy and happy.  Perspective sure changes doesn't it? 

I was lamenting not being a goal one day... you know the drill...beating yourself up inside your head and thinking self-destructive thoughts.  The next report that came up in my que at work was a 13 year old little boy with cancer with metastases to brain and liver.  THAT was a wake up call too.  Can you imagine what he or his parents would give to only have weight be a problem?

HUGS to you on all your trials but so glad you are on the mend!

I liked your post.  It's a difficult balance between being happy/accepting of where you are vs. striving to do more.  Sometimes it's determination, sometimes it's us being unrealistic-- it's often hard to figure out which we are doing.

I know that although I weigh about 12 lbs more than what I liked weighing, I'm also fine with it.  No one has a perfect body, not even those skinny models (they see their own bodies as flawed).  I'd like to lose about 4 or 5 lbs, but I'm not stressing over it.  I just don't want to gain more.

I do feel that because of my VSG, it is highly unlikely for me to gain back all of my weight unless I actually TRIED to.  BUT, I certainly could gain back a significant portion unless I watch my food choices, etc.  Bad habits creep back in, and I seem to gain easily.  Old cravings come back.  But with VSG it is MUCH more managable!  I used to be able to gain 5 lbs in a couple of days.  Now it takes several weeks or even several months of bad choices.  It gives me more time to catch it early and turn things around .

So I guess the moral of the story is that we shouldn't get hung up on numbers.  Focus on health!

Blessings,
Rana

I love this post as well because  I think it is far more important for us to be healthy and happy and live our lives with enjoyment rather than in a deprivation and desperation way.
I am happy bouncing between 120-125 and wearing size 4/6 and being 5 ft tall. I know some on this board that are many inches taller than me that weigh many pounds less than me and that seems to work great for them. I also see them (and I mean this in a general way, no one person specifically) stressing over each pound and every morsel they put in their mouth. I see them eating what I consider very low carb and very low calorie. 
For me the trade off (lower weight, lower size) is not worth how restrictively I would have to live my life.
Amen to focusing on health and for me health is not just physical but mental and spiritual as well.

We are silly humans and we cling to tight to what we think will make us happy.  And sometimes successfully squeeze the thing that did make us happy right through our fingers. 

Thank you for sharing that story!

Great post Jaxxy. Self acceptance is something we all have to learn at some point in this process because we are all so used to hating our bodies and even with weight loss find new things to hate such as saggy skin or not enough loss or whatever. Plastics are fine but one needs to learn that hating one's body is hating oneself and to love and accept yourself you gotta make peace with your body which is probably not as flawed as you think. Sounds like you have accomplished that important attitude and I applaud you for it.

As to the woman who lost weight and then couldn't get to her goal and eventually regained, don't forget the ghrelin factor. My surgeon says its increased fivefold in people who do traditional dieting which pretty much dooms people to regain and then some. Yes, this woman should have accepted herself at 220 but thats not all that was at work here.

In any case, we all need to work at body acceptance - even those of us *****ached our goal find things to hate like sags and new wrinkles that were once filled out with flab. When I see those facial wrinkles that I didn't have a year ago I try to be grateful for the 125 pounds that are gone and remind myself that I am no spring chicken and that a few lines are a small price to pay for my health and for being at a normal weight for the first time in my adult life.

We are indeed all beautiful as we are. Next time you feel cranky about some saggy skin or other "side effect" of major weight loss, just remind yourself that you would not think any less of your friends if they had the same saggy skin and that we are our own worst critics and just to lighten up and think of all the good things gained from this weight loss. At least thats what I tell myself to do.   Diane