All Ye Watchers of Weight

      Hi.  My name is Sue and I'm a Watcher of Weight.  At the tender age of 45, I really have no choice.  Actually, I NEVER really had a choice.  I always had that special knack of seeing my fat cells increase in volume at the mere thought of chocolate.  Thank God I was a competitive swimmer in high school.  I have no idea what I might have looked like back then if I hadn't been swimming seven to eight thousand yards in "two-a-day" practices.

     And then there were those two pregnancies in my late thirties.  Yup, at the end of each of those pregnancies, I tipped the scales at a whopping 215 pounds both times.  Oh yeah, did I tell you I'm 5'5"?  Of course, the first birth resulted in an immediate weight loss of 8 pounds and 9 ounces.  The second birth produced a bit better instantaneous weight loss record of 9 pounds 10 ounces.  But that left the additional 42 pounds or so that still remained on my "swimmer's frame".    It was "sticky" weight.  It stuck.  How long after pregnancy can you actually get away with calling your excess poundage "baby weight"?  Does it still work after 6 years?  God knows, I tried.  It's so hard being overweight.  Hard on your body.  Hard on your mind.  Hard on your self-esteem.  But if you're a Watcher of Weight, then you already know this. 

      Last June, I had enough.  Enough feeling sluggish.  Enough feeling unhealthy.  Enough feeling "lumpy".  Enough feeling like I was a poor example for my kids and unattractive to my husband (though he never said as much if he, in fact, even thought it).  Oh, and I had heard MORE than enough "out-of-the-mouths-of-babes" comments from my brutally honest children, then ages 7 and 6, about Mommy's 'jiggly butt'.  They have since been educated in the skills of sensitivity. Now they are Watchers of Words.

       So, last June 1rst, I hiked Mommy's "jiggly butt" down to the local Weight Watchers in town and got down to the business of doing some hard work.  Did I want to sign up for a week at a time?  Nope.  Let's do this month by month.  The money outlay for four weeks is upfront.  In my mind, it made the deeply "committed" even more so.  I would at least be kept honest for the next four weeks because, hell, I've already paid for it.

        It's hard to lose weight.  It's hard to get yourself moving, to do "more than you did before" as WW encourages you to do.  It's hard to be vigilant about your food choices, to eat healthy, to eat correct portions, to limit your partying and your celebrating.  It's hard to keep yourself reeled in when you turn to food to lighten other hurts, the emotional ones. I did the hard work.  I lost 22 pounds between June and Christmas.  At that point, I had another 10 to go.  But even there, I felt good about how I  looked.  And physically and emotionally, I felt awesome. 

         It's been a little over a year since that initial decision.  I'm up a bit, but I continue to go to my WW meetings.  In fact, was down .6 pounds today.  Yay for me.  This will always be my "state of being".  Somewhere over the past 30 years, I've reconciled myself with this fact.  And that's okay.

       I want to leave you with a quote from WW.  I don't know who specifically said it, so I am left only to give WW, the organization, the credit for it.

"It is hard to be overweight.  It is hard to lose weight.  You get to choose which 'hard'."

My hope is that, after reading this piece, just one of my readers will choose the healthy "hard".

May the Blessings be.

Sue