81.6 pounds down! FABULOUS! It’s a nice place to be at, believe me.

Patrick the Wombat weighs over 80 pounds. You’re gorgeous, Patrick. Don’t let anyone tell you different!

While only a few people have come up to me and commented on my weight loss, more have asked publicly or privately how I’m losing the weight. This is my answer to that, and I’ll probably repost it to all who ask.

I usually give a vague answer, and there’s a reason for that, but I also know that vague answers lead to speculation. Heck, I’ve heard those speculations in regards to others who have had good weight loss success, and there’s no reason to think that the same things aren’t being said about me; I knew they were when I lost 140 pounds a decade ago.

So. A few clarifications.

Why I won’t answer: It’s simple. What works for me is likely not going to be the same thing that works for you — or for anyone else. One of the truly frustrating things about weight loss is finding that magic combination of enough of everything that it results in healthy weight loss, and the cruel fact is that it’s different for everyone. Not only that, but what’s working for me at 81 pounds down may well not work for me at 100 pounds down.

The human body is an amazing creation that is built to adapt to a staggering number of conditions, both internal and external. It’s also subject to an infinite combination of aspects that both help and hinder its ability to function at its best, and at any given moment, our bodies may have both active and latent hindrances to weight loss.

If I were to tell you exactly what I am doing to lose weight, nothing says it would work for your unique set of circumstances; unfortunately, especially if you’ve dealt with excess weight for the majority of your life, you have to find what works for you.

What works: Hard work. That’s what works, and that’s the bottom line. You have to put the effort in to get the results, and often, for the chronically overweight and obese, the amount of work required is much more strenuous than someone who has a better set of circumstances.

You have to be willing to completely throw away the idea of Unfair. It doesn’t matter, at all. Allowing yourself to wallow in the unfairness of being handed a set of physical circumstances that are difficult to manage solves nothing; it’s excuse making. The chances of anyone been a successful dieter while thinking “I can’t ever lose any weight, so I’m going to eat half a gallon of Cherry Garcia ice cream!” are slim. Get your mind in the right place.

The best advice I can give to anyone who’s willing to put in the work is to advise them to be a scientist on their own behalf. Rather than just jumping on a branded diet and expect it to work, do your research. Learn and understand the hows and whys of your body, as much as you can. Learn the consequences of your actions, your trigger foods, the times of day that are worst for you.

If you aren’t willing to put in the hard work necessary, you will fail.

While it may appear to most that I’m losing weight quickly so they want to know what I’m doing to lose it, I’m really not losing weight quickly. It’s been a long process of ebbs and flows, of periods of no loss and some regain, and times where I’ve been so frustrated that I’ve been tempted to give up. I’ve had to stick to it and change my tactics every time I’ve hit a roadblock. Right now, I’m doing well; in a couple of months, I may have to completely change what I’m doing. And I have to find the balance between being impatient and waiting too long to change something. You have to find your own way, just like success in anything else.

Dispelling Possible Rumors: I will say this much. I restrict carbs and calories, and I move more. As I continue to lose weight, I’ll have to increase my physical activity.

I am a middle-aged menopausal female with severe thyroid issues and other complications, including metabolic syndrome. I am under a doctor’s care and I do take prescription drugs for these issues. While medical intervention has helped fight my body’s defective mechanisms, the actual work involved in getting the weight off is mine; simply popping a pill will not be effective for the vast majority of us.

I have not had weight loss surgery. I have several friends who have successfully lost weight with surgical methods; they will be the first people to tell you that it isn’t an easy answer to a tough problem. It still requires commitment and lifestyle changes. While I applaud these women for their hard work and successes, I would not choose this particular solution for myself.

I do not believe in fad diets. While I do take a number of supplements meant to help correct my body’s chemical makeup, I do not use or endorse the use of shakes, bars, products that are meant for other uses but tout weight loss, or other such methods. Nearly all of the foods I eat are whole foods. I may on occasion have a meal bar with me if I’m in a situation where getting a meal on plan may be difficult. But I do not endorse any method that simply helps you lose weight and does not teach you how to change your lifestyle.

The fact is you can lose a ton of weight — and quickly — with many such methods, but if you don’t know how to maintain the loss, and you’ve learned nothing about changing your lifestyle, and your head isn’t in the right place, you might as well expect the weight to pile back on.

The Truth: I know most of this is not what people want to hear, but it’s the truth, in my experience. And in the long run, while I say it’s hard work, it does get easier as time goes on; if you find your rhythm, your support, and your incentives as you improve, changing your lifestyle isn’t as daunting a few months or a year into a process as it is when you first dive in.

It’s been a great weight loss week, and I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve lost 78.4 pounds to date. Although this losing streak of mine has been going on for three months, now, I admit I get very nervous on the odd week that I don’t lose something. More often than not, though, I get excited, because I know that as long as I can keep on losing, I’ll be returning to the things I love.

78 pounds of watermelon

For me, losing weight and restoring the things that I absolutely love is one of the biggest gifts I can possibly give to myself.

Sure, I have fleeting thoughts that are vain in nature. I yearn to be among the normal; to look around me and know that the things that set me apart and brand me as special and unique having nothing to do with being fat — or for that matter, being known for weight loss, because that’s simply another side of the same coin. I want to shop in clothing departments that don’t have a single “plus” size in them, and be able to buy something off the rack and know it’ll fit. I want to get on an airplane and not automatically request a seatbelt extension. I want to take joy in being photographed, instead of wanting to hide behind someone.

But more than that, I yearn for experiences.

All of us have had them: those singular exhilarating moments where grace whispers to you that you’ll remember the experience forever, so beautiful that to merely revisit those moments takes your breath away. These are the things that matter most, and while being fat doesn’t necessarily preclude those perfect moments, I find that for me, these breathless golden memories usually are a result of accomplishments and achievements.

It’s standing on top of Pinnacle Mountain, and knowing that despite the pain it took me to climb there, I did it, and felt the exhilaration of filling my lungs with the cooler breeze at the top, taking in the vista around me, that much closer to the sun.

It’s the simple joy of running up the steps at a ballpark, and landing at the top, not at all out of breath.

It’s swimming in the ocean.

It’s standing along the edge of a football stadium in the golden light of a Saturday afternoon, and being a small, contributing part of one whole — playing a stirring fight song to the masses below. Being a part of the fiber that makes something magnificent is truly what making music is about.

This is not as much about weight loss for me, as it is about shedding the cocoon my weight has built around me, and returning to flight. So while I’m happy that you who have come here to read these words are joining in my journey with me, as I stand on the cusp of the time my weight loss becomes truly noticeable, I hope that you know by now that it’s not about the loss at all. It’s about becoming. Most of all, I want to become me, again.

There is true fear in losing that cocoon, and peeling back the mental layers to heal what’s there and fight for what I want: to live, unrestricted. To be known for my words, for my heart, for whatever else makes me unique other than how much fat I do — or don’t — caryy. This entire blog is dedicated not to my body, but to my mind, because it’s my thoughts that have held me back in the past.

I am thankful for each of you that come here to celebrate my losses with me. Inevitably, for me, it’s not as much about celebrating loss, but relishing each step I take toward building a life worth living.

Or, more exactly, the way I was; two years ago, yesterday, to be exact. That day was the last first day of diets for me. That’s right: although I’ve had some valleys and some mountains, I’ve been at this effort for two years. Hard to believe!

Obie the obese dachsund weighed in at 70 pounds, poor thing. Good news, though! He’s lost a LOT of weight! http://www.obiedog.com/

And to make it even better, I’ve now lost 70 pounds.

Looking back — at the way I was — there are big differences. Most people wouldn’t physically see a difference unless they looked at photos; it’s been a slow loss, and in my experience, it takes a fairly fast loss, or a long time since seeing someone, for anyone to truly notice. The lesson, to me, is that I can tell the difference, and that’s where it counts.

Two years ago, I weighed 371 pounds. I know that will likely come as a shock to those who have just recently come to read this blog, but that’s the starting number. That’s a great weight… if you’re ten feet tall, but on my 5’2” frame? Not so much. Years of being morbidly obese have taken their toll on my frame, most noticeably my knees; both knees have level 4 arthritis on all surfaces, but my right knee is now locking and going out of alignment. Chronic pain was, and still is, very much part of my life. I walk with a cane. I wear a leg brace (when it fits). For long walking, my husband pushes me in a travel chair.

These are difficult realities of my existence, and not easy in the least to put out there in such a public way, but that was my commitment two years ago: to be accountable. Although I’ve struggled and nearly given up a couple of times, I haven’t. I’ve watched my weight drift up despite doing what I thought was necessary to bring it down. I’ve done great things; and I’ve guiltily dragged myself in here to admit that I’ve thought about giving in, but at no point have I just totally given up the fight.

And thank God. Today, I stand here 70 pounds less than I did two years ago, and believe me, that’s much better than the alternative. Quitting does nothing. I have taken over 70 pounds off of my knees, and while I still have good days and bad ones, I find the bad ones aren’t as severe as they once were, and the good ones are more common.

People usually ask if I feel better — of course I do! While I’m not doing handsprings just yet, life is getting easier for me. I am in control. I have hope. Two years ago, I felt depression settling in, which is not an uncommon thing, for me — or probably anyone else who is morbidly obese. But even when I feel totally out of control of everything else, the one thing I know I can do is control what I choose to eat and drink. Sometimes, those smallest victories are what keep us sane; I was thankful for this when my oldest brother died earlier this year, and I was the target of unexpected family drama. When days like that hit you, being able to cling to the things that keep our heads above water is tantamount.

It’s not about willpower; it’s about choice. Every single day, I wake up with the choice to stack up one more day, one more tick in the Good column, and as the number of days that stack up in the Good column accumulate into weeks, months, and years, it becomes even more difficult to forsake that.

I would be lying if I didn’t admit that there aren’t some days where I wake up and want to drive to the nearest IHOP and order sixteen Belgian waffles with sprinkles and whatever else they dump on there, and then take a face-dive in them, but I don’t. And each day, whether it shows on the scale or not, a little bit of that stored energy (that’s “fat”, people!) leaves my body and goes wherever fat goes when it gets exorcised. Personally, I don’t care, as long as it doesn’t come back to me. And as long as I keep up the good fight, it won’t.

Two years down the road, who knows where I’ll be, then? Hopefully, I’ll be reporting in about how great the journey still is, and how far I’ve come.

On my first blog (find it here), I ended with this, which has never been truer than it is, today, two years later:
It’s not who I am, today; it’s who I am tomorrow that will make the difference.

“None but ourselves can free our minds” — Bob Marley’s song “Redemption Song” is in the back of my mind, this week; a song of freedom, and I truly believe that’s where I’m at, in this moment… as well as being down yet another 4.2 pounds this week.

67 pound catfish — that’s a lot of dinners, right there!

It’s been another amazing week for weight loss; the kind of week where I wake up excited every morning, ready to jump on the scale and knowing I’m going to see a loss of some kind. I don’t always have days like this, but when they happen, it reinforces my belief that I have finally found the right combination for losing weight at this point in my journey.

The reality is that at some point, my body will likely adapt and I will not see these kinds of losses; this is the nature of weight loss, unfortunately. Our bodies are designed to adapt, so when there’s a great amount of weight to be lost, it can result in periods of frustration, trial, experiments, more frustration, plateaus, rises in weight, but persistence and a willingness to be a scientist on your own behalf is necessary to break through all this to the next stretch of loss.

I am there. I feel redeemed (and hence the song) — quite often, when I’m guessing and trying to change things, that small voice that dooms me to failure likes to whisper in my ear and tell me that I’m bound to fail again, bound to live fat and die fatter. And while that voice is always present, and I’d do well to remember that, it’s subdued right now. I’m going strong.

That mental change and boost helps immensely. Yes, seeing a lower number on the scale gives me a mental boost that tells me what I’m doing is paying off, but inevitably, it’s a number. It’s a tool that helps us gauge success, but it’s not the end-all, be-all of measurement. It’s everyday life that’s the ultimate reflection of success.

It’s sitting in a movie theater seat, like I did on Wednesday, and realizing that not only did I not have to uncomfortably squeeze my large butt into the seat (and suffer through two hours with the seat pinching me), but I actually had a little room for comfort. It’s realizing that my ankles are starting to look more like normal people’s ankles. It’s the small things, friends.

It’s also about finally reaching a weight where the difference between clothing sizes doesn’t take as large a span of weight to move between them. For small sizes (let’s say sizes 10 and under), it takes but a few pounds to move between sizes; my thin friends notice their clothes fitting tightly with as little as a five pound gain. In larger plus sizes, it takes much more to move between sizes — sometimes in the neighborhood of forty to fifty pounds, depending on the clothing item — and for each size down, it takes less weight to reach the lower size.

As I’m losing more rapidly, I’m finding that the clothes I’ve lived the summer in are getting to a point where they’re uncomfortable to wear because they’re baggy. I’m not about to worry about them because the summer is almost over, except for swim suits; I don’t care for wardrobe malfunctions. I’ll leave those to Janet Jackson and Nikki Minaj.

My head is firmly in the right place, and at this moment, I feel indestructible. It’s a revolution, friends, and I’m winning.

Friends, I am down another pound — and the ticker is updated to 63.2 pounds lost! This has special significance, too — more about that in a bit! Yep, I’m doing a happy dance!

Bucky the Wonder Goat weighs 63 pounds!

I freely admit that I love warm weather, and detest the cold — but there’s just something about the first cool hint of fall that invigorates me. Perhaps it’s the beginning of the school year, and all the old memories it brings; as the wife of a teacher, I’m caught in a constant repeat of school cycles, and quite often, it’s the best of my own days that revisit. I also take in the slant of the sun that hints at the golden days of fall yet to come, lower humidity, open windows, a hint of chill in the morning.

Sooner or later, this sort of weather stirs up a desire to set things to order. Yesterday was just such a day, and I’ve been digging through my archive of clothing.

I have several levels of archives. I keep one drawer in my bedroom that has clothes that are just a little bit small, in hopes that I can fit into them and rotate those clothes into regular use — and, by extension, get rid of some things that are too big. Yesterday, I did exactly that, thanks in part to pulling a pair of jeans out of a drawer, because it was cool outside and I had an errand to run. (I live in a warm climate and I work from home; I haven’t had on a pair of jeans since spring.)

My “goal drawer” had four pairs of capris in it; three pair that I’ve worn when I’ve been smaller, and a pair I bought last year. I’m sure I’m not alone in this; I bought the pair by size, and by all rights, they should have fit. I’m not sure whether it was my desire to fit in them or my lack of desire to deal with a return that made me keep them; this happens more often than I care to discuss. I bought them because they were a great bargain; well, if I never actually wear them, are they really a bargain?

Today, though, they fit. They’re a bargain, again. 😉 Not only that, but three out of four pair fit. Perfect for fall weather! This also means that I’m going to move out some things that are too large, and I will get them out of my house — I will not allow for the possibility that I’ll gain this weight back, yet again, and need them.

My goal drawer barely has anything in it, now, so it’s time to dive back into the clothes archives and look for a few things that are just a bit snug. (I’m sure I have plenty to choose from.)

It’s also with some pride that I’ve realized I’m approaching a milestone; like many people who have lost a lot of weight over the course of their lifetimes, I have numbers I keep in mind that I want to beat. My biggest number to beat is 140.5, which I accomplished over a decade ago now, but second to that was my most recent loss before this one, and documented on this blog.

I’ve had it in my mind forever that I lost 70 pounds during that effort — but going back to my numbers, I see that I actually lost 63 pounds, total.

63! Now, why does that number seem so familiar? 😉

Surpassing this number will mark this weight loss effort as my second most successful effort, and considering that I had a relatively easy time of it the first go-round, until I hit the plateau to end all plateaus, is monumental. I’ve faced a lot of roadblocks that didn’t exist during that big loss; age being the most obvious, followed by knee problems that have limited my ability to exercise, menopause, hormonal imbalances.

As I pass that 63 mark, I realize I’ve learned some lessons since that last round of weight loss. I ended that weight loss by going on vacation and becoming thoroughly disgusted with myself, giving up the effort, and not only regaining all of my weight — but more on top of it. I believe I’m stronger than that, now, and while I still get frustrated and want to give up, I also know the harsh reality is that giving up just hurts me more.

I have a few more milestones to pass in the next few pounds, and I’m looking forward to sweeping right on by them. Because, at some point, I’m going to open that goal drawer and there will be no more clothes left to take out.