Losing It – TWICE! 1 of 2

Aug 10, 2010 by classicgrrl

I’ve lost weight.  162.5 lbs to be exact.  Not all at once but in two major spasms of losing frenzies.  When people learn this – and it is usually a shock – the first question out of their mouth is “How?”

I can tell what I did and the amount of time it took but where the motivation came from (and where it went) and why or how I stayed focused or disciplined is an enigma.  However, folks ask so frequently I thought that maybe a blog post was in order. 

Please understand I am not a professional, some of what I did was probably not healthy, and I am certainly not telling anyone else how to do it.  I can only say what I learned, observed and what worked for me.  Weight gain and loss is an incredibly personal journey, it involves way more than just scales and numbers.  Some people are large from birth.  I was not.  I was not an overweight child – in fact, my mother recounted to me the story of my high school calling her when I was a freshman concerned that I was too thin.  They thought I was anorexic.  Given the amount of cakes and cookies I would put away at home, my mother promptly told them to take a flying leap off something short into something large; Mom was a nurse and she would certainly know if her daughter was anorexic or bulimic.  What the school didn’t know is I fed a music fetish and would save lunch money by not eating; hording away to buy books and records because we were not rich enough to afford an allowance.  That is why they never saw me in the cafeteria.  That is why I am the proud owner of a small monument of useless vinyl.      

Sometime after getting married, I sank into a very low depression and I started eating.  It seems after marriage I was extremely unhappy; I just didn’t know it.  I did what I was supposed to do – got married, found a real job after college (I’d been blessed with graduating in the middle of a recession) and moved into a small apartment.  This was happily ever after except it really wasn’t; but, girls like me didn’t have dreams and ambitions and I was damn lucky to find a stable, wonderful man who was actually silly enough to love and marry me.   I was diagnosed with depression – apparently, I had it all my life and I set about reading everything to learn about this new label.  And I ate.  And ate.  And ate.

I ballooned to 225 and then snapped.  I wished I had kept a journal and without it I truly do not know what the catalyst was for my about face.  However, my now ex-husband had found an obesity study through Ohio State University and we paid the money for my enrollment.  Placed on a half fast, meaning I had 3 protein shakes per day (created by one of their doctors) and a small meal for dinner the weight slowly melted away.  After a cardiologist, an exercise physiologist, and a counselor evaluation, an exercise regime was created consisting of walking on a treadmill for 30 min then lifting.  I did my arms one day and my legs the next and repeated this 5 times per week. 

I threw myself into the workouts and counted the calories including the gum I chewed to keep from putting anything else in my mouth.  I did have some tactics regarding food.  The program taught us the relationship function between kidney and liver was essential to weight loss and drinking 8 glasses of water a day was imperative.  We were to drink one 8 oz glass for every 25 lbs we wanted to lose on top of the 64 oz daily.  I started out drinking a gallon of water per day and swiftly learned the more private bathrooms in our building.  I paced it throughout the day with the bulk of it being drunk during work.  I created spreadsheets of the foods I could eat including fruit, meat and breads regarding portion and caloric content.  I limited myself on what went in my mouth.  I designed a cheat day consisting of nothing but chocolate.  We could eat all the vegetables we wanted without having to count calories. I stopped eating all pre-packaged foods and ate raw foods only.  I cheated a bit on weekends but kept my portions low.  I was on one thousand calories per day.  What was to be for 3 months turned into 6; I was obsessed. 

We met twice a week; miss two meetings and you were out of the program and out of the money paid for it.  Most of my study mates dropped but I kept at it.  I still have the BMI chart showing my progress of 12 weeks, then 24 weeks and then I ended up in the hospital because my gall bladder gave out.  I’d dropped from 225 to 135.  The obesity staff was shocked and I filled out all kinds of questionnaires and surveys.  I felt very proud of myself not for losing the weight but for maintaining such a stranglehold over my own appetite.  I was a disciplined, focused machine regimented by tape measures, scales, dumbbells, barbells, and timers.  I visited a surgeon and discovered I had plantar fasciitis and now knew why my feet had burned all my life and that I could actually do something about it (stretching).  I had more muscle tone at 31 then I did at 21 or even 16. 

But after the year of losing the weight, shedding the depression, quitting the job after gall bladder surgery until I was tested and diagnosed with Meniere’s (a result of my surgery and another label)…something wasn’t permanent.  I divorced shortly after moving to Cincinnati I was thankful and grateful I had lost the weight before because it made dating and attracting another mate much easier.  However, it wasn’t right – something wasn’t fixed.  I feared the weight and depression returning.  I feared everything in those days. 

Part 2 of ‘as the weight returns’ next week….