Bringing down the hammer.

Looking back at my old photos growing up, I see that I was relatively the same size as many of my friends.  However, I was always the FAT one.  By college, that became the truth, but before that, it wasn't really.  When contemplating why that was the perception, I've come up with a few reasons:

• I weigh a lot.  Currently. I weigh 30 pounds more than my mom, but we wear the same size or I wear slightly smaller.  30 POUNDS.  I was definitely always on the bottom of the pyramid.
• I am slow.  I know now that even in the best shape I have ever been in, I can't run fast.  I think that running was such an effort for me equated to fat and out of shape.
• I eat a lot.  It always took more to get me full.  I was always hungry first.  I thought about food a lot.

Dude, I was nerdy as hell, but I wasn't this gargantuan creature that I made myself out to be.  I'm the goober nut on the left.  :)

I think that all the things above contributed to the myth that I was fat...that and every girl thinking she is fat.  So when I got to college, I think I just let go.  I had dieted all through high school and I was still known as the fat one, so forget about it.  I'm just going to do, eat, and drink what I want. 

I didn't weigh myself much back then, but I'm guessing that from my Senior Prom to my college graduation, I gained around 75 pounds.  After graduation from the time of my surgery, I went up and down, up and down, up and down.  I weighed as little as 197 once, and 206 once.  And I was high as 265 many, many times and right before surgery ballooned to 285. 

Like many of you reading this, I dieted a lot.  Weight Watchers, NutriSystem, Jenny Craig, pills, shakes, Atkins, South Beach...and I'm sure there are many I'm forgetting.  Often I successfully lost the weight only to put it back on.  Same old story, right?

I needed so much food to be satisfied, not stuffed, but just satisfied.  I needed so much volume that in order to lose weight, my options were very limited.  I had to eat grilled chicken/fish, veggies and maybe some fruit.  That was it.  I would do fine for a while, but then I would get tired of eating the same thing over and over.  So I would quit and I would start gaining weight...even if I wasn't eating horribly.

All my life:

Diet = Deprivation.

When I got my Lap Band, that changed.  I was able to diet without completely depriving myself of things.  Because I was satisfied with a small amount of food, for the first time in my life, I could have some of what other people were having without feeling shame.  I was in heaven.  I felt normal.

Diet was no longer deprivation.  Diet = food put into my body. 

It was amazing to be able to work at it just a little and still be successful.  But, there came a time, when working "just a little" stopped working so I ramped up my exercise.  At good Band restriction, with my exercise and only slight adherence to nutrition, I have proven to myself that I can maintain quite easily.

Two problems with that:

1. I can maintain, but because I've become so happy with my food life, I have stopped losing.  And seemingly, no amount of psyching myself up is working to get me out of maintenance and back into losing.  I try.  Well, you all know because you are witness to it here. 
2. When I'm not at good restriction, I'm screwed.  I'm gaining.  Not a lot.  I'm just at the high point of "my range".  But I can feel myself losing control.  My fill isn't until 5/10 so I absolutely cannot wait until then to get control over myself.

What am I going to do?  I'm going to old school diet.  I have 10 days before my fill.  I get no credit for exercise because I do that anyway.  But for 10 days, I will be in my calorie range and I will drink my water.  I'm going to be hungry.  That is just going to have to happen and I will get over it.  I did a liquid diet for two weeks pre-band and I got through it.  I can get through this. 

Honestly, I just need to get myself to do this.  No rewards, no punishments.  I just need to do it.  I will worry about what to do after the fill...well, after the fill.

I'm kind of at one of those Crossroads.  I need to do something just because I'm telling myself I need to do it.  Quite honestly, when it comes to food, I don't even believe myself anymore.  And that, my friends, is a problem. 

10 Days.  Nothing more.  Will I walk the walk?  All I can say today is that I hope so.  I really, really hope so.

Hugs!!