A little over 4 months ago I wrote about burying my head in the sand and indulging. I just re-read the post for the first time since then and it ends on such a positive note. I talk about how, even though I go through phases of making poor choices, my stretches of good behavior are increasingly longer and more frequent. I talk about how I always pick myself up and try again (cue Pink song, “Try“).
Fast forward 4 months and this is the longest slump I have ever been in. I think that over the course of the past 8 months I have had perhaps 5 good days, if that. I really don’t even try anymore. I have gained 50 pounds in the last 8 months. Fifty. My clothes don’t fit, I feel terrible, my breathing is labored, it’s a struggle to walk. I genuinely don’t know how it happened. Well, of course I know HOW it happened- I quit paying attention and restricting myself and instead I just ate whatever I wanted. It’s the why that I’m unclear on.
Why did I give up? Why did I stop trying? What happened in my head that it suddenly felt insurmountable and I felt like it was no longer worth the effort or the struggle? Why did I let myself become this person again? This apathetic, obese, overindulgent, unhappy version of myself? This isn’t me. I have spent the last 5 years fending off this person, holding her at bay with my workout routines and food scale and weight loss apps. I didn’t think I would ever become her again and yet…
7 years ago I reached my highest weight. At 5’6″ I weighed 327 pounds. That number is burned into my brain like a brand on cattle. 327. I don’t know why that was the number that made me pull my head out of the sand, but that week I joined Weight Watchers (for probably the 8th time). That time, though, it helped. I lost 30 pounds and kept it off for awhile. Over the past 7 years I have roller-coastered down to 255, back up to 312, and down to 260, back up to 280, and then down to 245 (the weight I was at last March). But, like I said, I gained 50 of it back again.
It’s so exhausting. So incredibly mentally exhausting. And embarrassing.
This afternoon, in the privacy of my hotel room, I ate a bunch of junk food. I ate it because I could, not because I wanted to, or because I enjoyed it. I don’t think I even did enjoy it. I certainly don’t recall eating it. One moment I had a bunch of junk food, the next moment I did not. After years of trying so hard to keep control and feeling guilty whenever I slipped, there’s almost a euphoria in this self-destructive state of indifference. Like a kid in a candy shop, I suppose. Only eventually the kid in the candy shop runs out of nickels and/or his mom comes to get him. I don’t have those limitations. I have the money and the freedom to keep this up indefinitely. That’s the scary part. Without the motivation and drive I lost 8 months ago, what’s to stop me from making 327 a non-significant number, as my highest weight climbs higher still?
And so here I am, once again, feeling in my head and my heart that this has to stop, while knowing that I have been here so many times before. How many times have I written in a blog post, or a journal, “this ends today.” Or, “Starting tomorrow!” Or, “Never again.” And yet…