Day One

Here I am, stuck having to sit in my own--let's be honest, fatness--dealing with the consequences of my own behavior, without any hope of immediate relief.  In this excruciating, deer-in-the-mirror moment, something snaps in me, and I make a private vow: "No sugar for one hundred days."

I have been trying to take weight off--I am pretty much ALWAYS trying to take weight off--and through the years, I have had more or less success in keeping my weight reasonably down.  I belong to a gym and try to go six days a week.  My basic diet is very healthy.  But I am getting older, and I have a sweet tooth that undoes me.  I know all the best lies to tell myself about how it won't undo me, but it seems to be smarter than I am.

Recently, the British way of measuring a person's weight in stones caught my eye, and I had gotten curious--exactly how much was a stone, anyway?  I'd looked it up.  Fourteen pounds. I thought that it would maybe feel better to think of losing three stones, focusing on one stone at a time, instead of thinking of the number of pounds, as, in the past four-and-a-half years since launching my divorce, it has been creeping up, and it's now a number that I really don't like to think about.  I decided I would try (informally) to lose the first stone by the end of the month.

And so, I went about that, informally, with only vague half-hearted rules in my head, and started to have minimal success.

When I talk about my minimal success, what I really mean is that I have been, for a long time now, bouncing between the five and the eight of a certain ten-pound range, and, as soon as I get to the five, I start to feel like I've accomplished something and give myself more leeway to eat less responsibly, until I get back up to the eight, when I redecide to get more serious about it.

I probably was not going to lose a whole stone this month, but I really became derailed one day this week when it was my turn to bring the treats for staff meeting.  Unlike most staff meetings, this one was scheduled for lunchtime.  I was feeling strong enough to not make a cake or anything sugary, and I was also feeling generous.  I bought rolls, two kinds of lunch meat, two kinds of cheese, some fruit, and some donut holes.  The donut holes were added last minute because, on the same day, there was going to be an opportunity to purchase a lunch at what I thought was an outrageous price.  This way, my teammates could have an option for a free lunch, I thought.  Or, if they bought the other lunch, they could at least have a bit of dessert.  Something for everyone.

What ended up happening, though, was that all my other team members sprang for the other lunch, and I was left feeling foolish for spending thirty-five dollars on an alternate lunch no one but I wanted.  So I started going off the rails by eating not only one, but two sandwiches.  (Someone had to!)  And having a few of those heavenly donut holes.

The donut holes, I must have you understand, were covered with cinnamon and powdered sugar.  So, they felt like air going in.  I tested this numerous times, and they continued to feel like air.  But, as all of our superegos know (when we think to check in with them), they were not made of air.

So, my altruistic "Something for everyone" plan turned into "Way too much for me."  Thus, it became even stupider than spending thirty-five dollars on stuff no one else would eat.

Two days later, I find my weight has shot up all the way past the eight to the zero in the next ten-pound range.  Quite honestly, a place I never wanted to be.  Now I have MORE than three stones to lose.  In my current goal du mois, I have failed.

And, complicating that, I had to go somewhere this morning, and I woke up too late to go to the gym first.  (Going to the gym can be relied upon to take a pound or two off of me in perspiration lost, which makes the official weight for the day more palatable.)

So, I hurriedly dressed in something that would accommodate my much-too-ample girth, and went to my thing.

At my thing, breakfast was provided in individual boxes.  I had hurriedly made myself two eggs--my usual breakfast--in order to help myself not succumb hungrily to something I should not eat.  In the box was a cup of mixed fruit, a small yogurt, and a croissant.  The croissant was the most appealing thing to me, but I knew that the fruit was the only thing that would not further fatten me.  I nibbled on it as I continued to think seriously about my plight.  I later handed my yogurt, which I knew had sugar in it, to one son, and my croissant to another.  I would not normally do that, but I was wallowing in remorse.  Even my underwear is not fitting well anymore, and I fear that, soon, the fat middle of me will poke out, completely unable to be clothed.

A very perceptive friend took one look at me and asked if I was okay.  "You don't look okay," she persisted.

"I'm just mad at myself," I muttered.  "I can be good for four days and ruin it in an hour."

I should introduce myself as someone who has been working on managing my weight for literally decades.  I am still middle-aged with decades to go, but old enough that maintaining my weight has become harder and harder to do.  Maybe some of you can relate?  I think it's still okay to call myself middle-aged, because it is possible for living people to be twice my age.  I am sure there are still more than seventy-seven people on earth who are at least twice my age.  When I get to the age where people cannot live to twice my age, I will try to stop calling myself middle-aged.  What is next?  Senior citizen, I guess?  Something to contemplate in the future.

I read everything I can about weight loss, and I have done numerous off-the-record studies with myself as guinea pig.  I know that sugar puts weight on me.  I also know that, with my basic healthy diet and my consistent exercise, if I could discipline myself to eat either zero or one thing a day with sugar in it, I would not gain weight.  Why it is so hard to do that is a mystery to me.  I blame genetics.  "Zero or one" is a mantra I have tried to keep, but, once I start eating sugar, I often cannot stop, so having it as a mantra has done me little good.

I know all the lies.  I am well acquainted with everything from "One more won't hurt" to "I might as well keep eating this and start over tomorrow."

Another problem I have is that, no matter how full or fat or stuffed I may feel at night, no matter how good the pep talks I tell myself in the morning are, no matter how hard I have to work to burn up what I know is actually only one-tenth of a pound, I have a personality switch after lunch.  I can be good clear around the clock--no problems in the morning, at lunch, after work, at night--but for an hour or three after lunch, my alternate personality is like, "Where's the sugar?"  That personality does not CARE about anything else my normal personality holds dear.  It's ridiculous.

So I am telling myself, on this horrible morning when I got up to a whole new weight range, these are my four new rules: no sugar, no overeating anything, exercise as much as I can, and hold this mindset continually no matter what.

Can I do it?  I have to.  I am promising myself I will.  I may be a liar, a sugar lover, a strategic self-weigher, and an excuse-maker extraordinaire, but I know that if I do not do something drastic, something real, something effective really for-reals, my weight will keep climbing, and I will become more and more disgusted with myself and more and more unhappy.  And that is not the life for me.