My weight through the years

I've had a weight problem since after the age of 10, in the early 1970s.  I don't recall exactly how much I weighed then, but 145 lbs. comes to mind.  Thankfully, I've always been tall (eventually I stopped at 5'10) so I carried the excess weight better than most, but I was definitely always larger than other kids my age, not only on the scale but visually as well.  

By the time I was 19, I was in the 180s.  When I was 22 years old, I got down to 150 lbs., but I still felt fat because people told me I was.  Throughout my entire life, there's always been someone (usually many "someones") to tell me I was fat - as if I didn't know already:  my family, doctors, friends, coworkers, and complete strangers, not to mention magazines and TV/movies, too.  I never felt comfortable about my body size - EVER.  It infuriates me now when I think of how I let people make me feel bad about myself even when I was actually at a healthy weight of 150 - 170 lbs. for my height.  In any case, being 150 lbs. didn't last long.  I joke that it was only for a week, but I don't think I'm too far off by saying that.  

I arrived in the 200s by my late 20s.  For the next decade or so, I fluctuated up and down the 200s until I finally reached the 300s by the time I was 40 where I hovered for more than a decade.  The highest weight I saw on the scale was 306 lbs.  The very few times I lost some weight, my body would snap back to 300 almost overnight it seemed.  I called it the "rubber band effect."  I just could not, for the life of me, lose weight for more than a couple of weeks.  I started to think that maybe this was my body's "normal" weight.

During my lifetime, I've lost weight so often that if I were to add up all those lost pounds, I think they would total over 350.  The most I ever lost at any one time was 45 lbs.  Mostly I would lose 20 here, maybe 30 there.  In every single instance, I quickly gained it all back…and more.  I can't honestly say that I tried everything to lose weight because I didn't.  Even as a teenager, I instinctively knew that some programs were not for me, such as: 

• taking pills to lose weight.  It's not surprising when some "magic" diet pill that's been flying off the shelves is suddenly pulled because it's determined to cause serious problems like liver damage or heart attacks.

• drinking shakes instead of eating real food.  What happens when you stop drinking the shakes and start eating regular food again?  A coworker I didn't see often because she was in another location lost over 90 lbs. in about a year doing just that.  I was desperate to learn how she did it so I could do it, too - the way people are desperate now to find out how I've lost all the weight.  When she told me it was through a hospital program that required her to drink shakes for two meals and eat a light dinner each day, I was really disappointed because I knew it wasn't for me.  Even as I congratulated her on her accomplishment, deep down I knew she would fail in the long run.  Less than a year later, she had regained almost all of it once the program ended and she went back to eating real food.  

• written diets that dictate what to eat for every meal of every day (this for breakfast, that for lunch, etc.) for the next few weeks or months.  These diets would never work for me because I want to eat what I want to eat when I want to eat it.  

• any program that consists of eating their pre-packaged foods.  Again, what happens when you stop eating their food?  Can you afford to eat their food for the rest of your life?  Would you even want to eat their food forever even if you could afford it? 

• crazy trends like "The Five Bite Diet" which allows you to eat anything you want, but you can only swallow five bites per meal.  I was dumbfounded when I learned a doctor created this diet.  Sure, starving yourself will make you lose weight, but how long can you keep that up before you start binging?   

• gastric bypass surgery.  I've never considered this route.  The idea that my body would become violently ill if I ate something I wasn't supposed to eat did not appeal to me one bit.  Although I know the surgery is a life saver for some people, it wasn't for me.  I feel the same about the sleeve gastrectomy (not reversible) and lap band (which can be reversed) that are less intrusive surgeries but still produce weight loss.  These surgeries force you to eat less because you get sick when you don't, but they don't take away your cravings.  That's why many patients start overeating soon enough and start gaining weight again.  I've even heard of people having the bypass surgery a second time years later.

The way I always tried to lose weight in the past was through eating less, but I wasn't smart or healthy about it:  I'd skip meals, I'd fast for a couple of days, I'd eat so few calories per day that I was binging before long because I was hungry, I'd completely deprive myself of foods I liked and, again, I'd start binging soon enough because I was obsessing about the foods I told myself I couldn't eat.  

Twice in my lifetime, once in my 20s and then again in my 30s, I joined Weight Watchers ("WW") and was successful in losing some weight but, again, I didn't keep up with it for long, maybe a few months, and then the weight crept back in no time.  In my opinion, WW was the most sensible program out there because it allowed me to eat whatever I wanted while forcing me to figure out portions because there's a lot of weighing and measuring foods, especially in the beginning. 

Even if I was eating okay, such as when I was on WW (although I was still skipping meals, especially before the weekly weigh ins), once I hit a plateau that lasted more than a couple of weeks, I'd give up.  What's the point of working so hard when you're not seeing results, right?  So no matter what dietary changes I was trying, none were successful for more than a few months.  Once I gave up, it proved once again what a failure I was when it came to my weight.  Not only did I have to deal with the emotional consequences of being a failure yet again, but now I had to deal with the added burden of gaining all the weight back and usually more.  Every time I started a new diet, it was starting all over again from the beginning because I had regained everything from my last attempt, plus more.  It was disheartening.

As for exercising, I'd try some type of program, but it was sporadic and short lived.  I've always hated exercising (absolutely HATED it!) and I'd never stick with anything for long.  When I was younger, I really enjoyed playing tennis and racquetball, but exercising regularly for the sake of exercising was boring to me, not to mention hard to do especially in the beginning after being sedentary for so long.   I didn't have the patience to keep up with anything long enough to see improvements.  As I piled on the weight, my exercise of choice was to walk around the neighborhood.  It wasn't that I liked walking so much as I just hated it less than all other exercise.  Plus it was free and relatively easy.  I could just go any time I wanted and didn't have to worry about driving anywhere or paying for parking or having to worry about business hours or being around other people.  

I did join several gyms in the past, I even hired trainers a few times, but I stopped going after a few months and then got stuck paying monthly gym fees until the contract was over and I could cancel - or I paid costly early cancellation fees.  

I tried Curves, too, but gave that up after a few months because it got boring very quickly.  Curves' theory is that in 30 minutes you're done with your workout.  Depending on the location, they'll have 12 different hydraulic machines, each one working a specific part of your body.  In between the machines is a station for you to do some floor exercise that keeps you moving, such as jumping jacks, marching in place, etc.  Every 30 seconds you're told to change stations so you end up alternating between a machine and whatever floor exercise you chose.  After finishing the circuit twice, you're done.  Nowadays some locations also offer Zumba classes a few times a week.  I saw Curves as a great start because I didn't feel comfortable going to a gym, but after a few months, it got really boring for me because it was the same thing over and over again.   

The bottom line is that no matter what exercise program I chose, it was always short lived.  I get bored easily and I had no self discipline when it came to food or exercising.

My entire life I was told that I had to lose the weight by the time I hit 40 because then it would become incredibly difficult, and that I absolutely had to lose it before I reached menopause because then I might as well forget it.  So here I was in late 2012, I recently had my 52nd birthday, I still weighed 300 lbs., and menopause was around the corner.  How would I EVER lose the weight now?!  When you fail time and time again, it's hard to get back up and try once more because now you've conditioned yourself to expect failure.  But you know what?  I did try once again and this time I was incredibly successful, and although it's probably been a harder and longer journey because of my age and reaching menopause in the meantime, I still succeeded like never before.  

What I tell people now is this:  

If I can do it after a lifetime of failing, YOU certainly can - regardless of your age!  Keep trying to find what works for you.  Don't give up!  It's absolutely worth the trouble!