This past Tuesday was a special day: it was the first day of my last diet.

That’s my goal: I want that day to be the last ever “first day of diet” that I ever have, because this time, I am going to do everything possible to make it a success.

Of course, that’s the attitude I always start out with, even though the memory of all the previous failures is there. It’s ever-present, that reality, and I have to fight strong to believe that this effort won’t be like every other time I’ve attempted weight loss — just another diet, doomed to failure. It doesn’t have to be that way. Because if I believe that this time won’t be different, I will fail.

I’ve decided that the best course of action is to do things that will help me down the road. Starting a diet is easy work; the hard work comes when the scale’s not cooperating, when there’s no evident progress being made, and the temptation to give up is great. With that in mind, I’ve already done a number of things I usually avoid doing when starting a diet, as well as committing myself to things that will hopefully help me in the long run.

They are:

 

I took a starting weight. As elemental as this sounds, there have been times that I’ve been so afraid of the scale that I haven’t done that one thing. In fact, my most successful weight loss journey ever started with not knowing my exact weight, because I didn’t have a scale that could weigh me.

Look, I’m not going to beat around the bush, as much as I’d like to: I am morbidly obese. There’s no hiding or avoiding that fact. Older scales generally only weigh up to 300 pounds, and guess what? I was over 300. The first reading I was able to get, after several weeks of dieting, was 338 pounds. During that journey, I lost 140.5 pounds — based on that starting number of 338, which wasn’t accurate.

This time around, our home scales only weigh to 300 pounds, but we have a gym membership. The gym has a doctor’s scale, so shortly before 5 am on Tuesday morning, I went there to weigh — only to discover that the scale stops at 350.

And I apparently weighed more than that.

We now have a new scale that weighs to 400 pounds, and also takes some other nifty data, like body fat percentage. I was able to weigh myself on Wednesday. While I am thoroughly embarrassed to admit this, that starting number is 371. I could write volumes here about how that number devastated me, but that’s for another blog.

So, although it wasn’t easy by a long shot, I have a starting weight.

I am also weighing daily, which I haven’t done with a diet for quite some time. I’m charting daily weights to see if I can detect any trends, and each Friday, I’ll post the lowest weight for that week.

 

I took starting measurements. The last few times I’ve dieted, I have skipped this. I can’t even really tell you why, except that it’s avoidance. The dumb thing about skipping measurements is that when I’ve needed some sort of indicator of success, I’ve denied myself the ability to compare and see progress and success.

There are times when I have really needed that reinforcement, and when I’ve denied myself that, I’ve struggled. I’ve done this enough to know that there are times when measurements change and the scale doesn’t, so I’m giving myself the gift of knowing those beginning measurements, this time, so months down the road, when I need the boost, I’ll be able to see the difference and hopefully keep myself on track.

I plan to take new measurements at the first of every month.

 

I took starting photos. During my most successful weight loss journey, I took a photo journal of my progress. I can still look back on that and say “hey, I did it.” While it’s difficult in the early months to see much of a difference, those changes become much more evident over the course of time. It’s another reinforcement of progress, and while I’ll likely take photos monthly, I also will take photos when I hit specific weight goals.

Along those lines, I am also going to take a good head shot photo on a regular basis, and it’ll be one where I fix my hair, do my makeup, and look happy. I’ll use this as an avatar for my various online activities. I’m guilty of using photos that are a year or two old, sometimes older, and it’s important for me to have an accurate idea of what I look like at any given time. Why hide it? I am who I am.

 

I publicly committed myself. I need the support of my friends and relatives, so I felt it was important to make sure those close to me know that I’m working toward improving my health. This blog is an extension of that effort.

As silly and vain as this sounds, the last time I lost weight, I lost around 70 pounds, which is a terrific effort. But my ego took an extreme hit when no one noticed or said anything to me about it. I’d like to believe that I don’t need that ego reinforcement, but apparently, I do; I need people to acknowledge that I’m making the effort and seeing success.

That doesn’t mean I want people gushing over me… no, what I want is the sincere comments of people who actually see a difference, especially from those that don’t realize I’m making an effort to lose weight. This is a slippery slope, and I’d really like to take ego completely out of the picture, but I have to admit to myself that I loved it when I lost 140 pounds and people didn’t even recognize me. That gratification helped keep me on track. And while I’ve written quite a bit about not wanting to be identified by my weight or my weight loss, to a point, that’s not entirely true. I don’t want to be the fattest person in the room; and I don’t want to continually be that woman that lost so much weight (please, let that be the case again!), but inevitably, I’m the sum of my experiences, and that includes the battle I’ve waged with obesity.

 

I privately committed myself. I did something I’ve never done, before: I made a video to Future Me. In it, I explain to the Future Me who’s struggling to stay on plan how it is, right now, to live in this body, to deal with this weight, and why things need to change. I did it in hopes that I’ll watch it when I need a kick in the butt, when I have forgotten the struggles that drove me to the point of recommitting myself to another effort — my last effort, if I’m successful.

There are other things I plan to do during the course of this journey, including things like tracking my symptoms, tracking changes in clothing sizes (for the record, I’m currently in size 28 jeans and 4X shirts), and more. It is a colossal effort, but it needs to be done.

 

I’m 51 years old; my 52nd birthday is next month. This is a gift I’m giving myself; I can’t live like this any longer. I have denied myself any number of pleasurable pursuits because of my weight and subsequent physical problems.

It’s not who I am, today; it’s who I am tomorrow that will make the difference.

(And, by the way, I’m down 6 pounds.)