Seven years. A total of approximately 2,557 days. Some good ones, a few stinkers in there, and some really great ones.

My 7th anniversary of starting what I first considered a diet was yesterday. I’ve reposted my first blog post, before, but there’s also some personal stuff I haven’t put online. Below are excerpts from my initial notes from September 3, 2013, followed by my comments from now.

(2013) I’ve been looking forward to this day, as well as dreading it. It’s the first day of what I hope will be the last time I start a diet. I want this time to be a success like no other.

2020: so far, so good! Although I’ve learned that every single day and every single choice made is a restart of sorts. Looking at the small choices makes them less daunting and easier; instead of telling myself from the get-go how much weight I needed to lose, I broke it down. Because otherwise, I would have broken down, overwhelmed by the task in front of me. And yet, here I am, almost 200 pounds later.

I have that desire every time I start. It’s a mix of high hopes, dread, anxiety, shame, and cynicism. I think it’s often the cynicism that does me in; I want this to be the time when everything changes for me, when I finally lose all the weight I need to lose, when I finally regain my health and can do so many of the things that fat has kept me from doing. But I don’t have faith; and why should I, really? Every single previous attempt has failed. What right do I have to believe that this effort will be any different?

And yet, I really do want it to be different. I’ve come close, before, and given up. I don’t want to give up, this time. I keep changing what I’m doing in hopes that this time I’ll find the key.

I’ve had to accept that I did things wrong, before — and I’m fully capable of screwing up, again. Just because something works for a little bit doesn’t mean it won’t need adjustment in the future; the body I have today requires different care than my 2013 body did. Most of all, I had to get out of my own way and be willing to accept and learn different ways of dealing with not only weight loss but my own mental health.

So, this morning at 4:40 am, I got up with the intention of driving to the gym. Not to exercise, mind you; to weigh, so I’d know a starting weight. Our home scale will not weigh above 300, and I know I’m easily above that number. The gym has an old doctor’s scale, so I drove there — only to find that the scale stops at 350, and — you guessed it — I weigh more than 350. I admit there’s part of me that expected that; and part of me that’s shocked, dismayed, and embarrassed.

I was faced with a choice. I have sworn to myself that this time I would make myself accountable in a number of ways, including knowing my starting weight, knowing my measurements, taking photos, blogging, videoing, and yes, this book. I can’t tell you how many times I start with good intentions of doing those things, and then don’t. When I don’t weigh or measure, I deny myself ways that reinforce to me that my body is changing, and while I might be embarrassed now, I know I’ll regret it if I don’t document.

And here I was, immediately faced with the knowledge that I don’t have a way to document a very important number: my starting weight. That happened years ago, when I first went on Atkins; I recorded my starting weight as 337 pounds, because that was the first weight I was able to see on a scale, several weeks after I began. I don’t know what my starting weight was. I console myself, now, that I was heavier, then; I wore size 32 jeans from Catherine’s, as well as a 4X jacket. I still have them.

Still. I swore to myself I’d document, and the first thing I’m faced with is no reliable way to do that. I told myself that I’d make weekly trips in to weigh until I lose enough weight to use my home scale, but how many times can I stand to make that drive, only to find out I’m still not within range? Talk about self-defeating.

I sucked it up and ordered a fancy new scale that weighs to 400 pounds.

And a couple days later:

Well, I’ve gone and done it. I weighed in.

Holy crap — I weigh 371 pounds. It’s no wonder that my body feels as badly as it does. I’m carrying more than 200 pounds than my body should, and just shy of a 100 pound gain since last July. I honestly don’t see what I’ve been doing to gain that weight, but that’s how it always is. All I can do is start, right? So that’s what I’ve got to do.

I plan to take photos and make a video today. There’s part of me that really doesn’t want to do that, but I desperately need to have a good talk with the future me — the one who may bail out after some success, because of any number of reasons, and give up the fight. I really need the future me to be strong and do this.

If you’re wondering if I made a video — I did. I’ve made a number of videos since then, and occasionally, I watch them to remind myself where I was, before, and why it was so necessary to document everything so I wouldn’t convince myself that things weren’t really as bad as they were and then backslide. Some day, maybe I’ll string them together and release them. Not today, though. Not today.

I also made those videos so I could see for myself how bad I really felt. How difficult it was for me just to move. How I couldn’t stand in front of the kitchen sink and wash all of the dishes because I was in too much pain to stand for the length of time it took, so I had to wash dishes in shifts. Or how long it took me to just get ready to go somewhere; clothing and personal hygiene were often a nightmare.

There’s a red cane in the back of the closet; that was actually from when I had started walking again and was able to walk for short distances. We loaned out my folding wheelchair (extra-wide, mind you) and just put it back in the garage for storage; not for me, but perhaps for relatives that might need it. There’s a walker mounted on the garage wall from my knee replacement surgeries. And if you’re wondering why I still have these things — I don’t keep them for me; I keep them because I know at some point someone — like my mother — may need them. Perhaps having lived that way gives me a glimpse into the real pain and the embarrassment of needing that sort of assistance.

While I hope to never return to those days, I also hope I never forget them, and that’s not quite as easy a feat. It’s been amazingly easy to leave that life behind with each improvement I see. Seeing the photos I took of myself seven years ago seems as if it’s someone else. I don’t deal with the pain, the awkwardness, the health issues. I don’t deal with the difficulty in movement, the time it took me to prepare for anything, the anxiety over just leaving my house. I no longer have to figure out the path I’ll take while grocery shopping so I don’t end up too tired or in too much pain.

I used to suffer from overwhelming anxiety because of my size. I felt as if eyes were on me, judging me wherever I was. If I met with a new client, I feared I would be out of the running not because of my abilities, but because of my size. I often felt like apologizing for who I was or appeared to be.

I have to always remember those days; not only so I never repeat them, but to always remember there are many who are, now, where I used to be, and they deserve as much humanity and respect as I do, now. None of us know what someone else is going through; there but for the grace of God go I, and I have fallen, before. I am determined not to fall again; every lesson is a bridge to the next stage. I have gained so much of my life back that I cannot fathom going back, but I also know that it will take all my determination for the next seven years — and the seven after that.