Maintenance is not as easy as it seems

Well, it's official. I jinxed myself.

Just as I was getting good and cocky about my ability to eat whatever I liked, the tides turned. After countless nights of endless glasses of wine, ice cream, chocolate chip pancakes, too large servings of delicious, buttery foods, I saw what I had been dreading for some time: a gain on the scale.

You know, you'd think that the girl who struggled with weight for the past 2o or so years wouldn't be surprised when, lo and behold, overeating leads to weight gain. But I have to admit, the first time I stepped on the scale and saw 152.5, I thought the scale must be broken. I wracked my brain for an explanation--PMS, salty food, not enough water. I figured there had to be some other reason than the obvious.

At first, I stayed calm. But then I weighed myself the next day and saw an even higher number. And the next day after that. And after a while, I became a teary mess of pre-menstrual nerves...crying about my weight gain three times a day. Crying about my lost cat Leo (we found him, thank goodness), crying about god knows what. Mostly, I cried because all of a sudden my confidence was shaken: I had proven myself incapable of doing what so many others do seemingly with ease: maintain their weight.

As soon as I believed that I had failed, I felt this overwhelming loss of confidence in myself. Every outfit I tried on felt like second best. In my mind, I'd figure, this would look better if I were smaller/ tighter [insert body part here]. And I know that my reaction wasn't completely rational. No one can see a weight gain of five pounds. No one noticed. Except for me. And I took things more personally, became more self conscious about people, and increasingly thought of myself as a "fat girl," even though I know that I'm not.

So, the moral of the story is that I need help getting back on track. I'm not sure what getting back on track means for me. Does it mean counting points? Exercising more regularly? Becoming a lifetime member? I missed my last weigh in because I knew I was up and I didn't feel like starving myself the days before to get to my goal weight. I didn't want to reach this milestone in a fake way.

So, here are my goals.

1. Tomorrow morning I'm going to weigh in (and post the result here) and I'm going to have weekly Wednesday weigh-ins. I don't need to be weighing myself three times a day. It's not good for me, and I think even Nathan, the most patient boyfriend in the world, is getting a little tired of my thrice-daily crying fits.

2. I'm going to resume my daily lunch jogs at work. I'll pack my jogging clothes and ipod with me to work and I'll start jogging for 15-20 minutes every day. If nothing else, I know that the exercise will make me feel better and more confident in myself.

3. As for food, I'm going to stop eating 'til the point when I'm stuffed. I'm going to try to eat a well-balanced diet, without having to count points, because there is no way that I'm going to count points for the rest of my life. Now, I know that some people enjoy the structure of point counting, but that's just not a sustainable plan for me. I'm not going back on what I said in my previous post--I am finished with dieting. Since I am at a close to healthy weight now, I'm focusing instead on living naturally and eating intuitively. If my "natural weight" is 160 by eating pretty much what I like, well then so be it. I don't want to have to stress about weight and counting points for the rest of my life. For right now, I'm going to focus on drinking more water, cutting down on cigarettes (I'm up to a pack a day now, yuck!) and not eating past the point of contentment.

Well, these are my goals. Oddly enough, I actually feel better writing all of this down. I will be back tomorrow to post my current weight (cue scary music here) and I'll let you know how the lunch jog goes.

It's possible, just possible, that I may have underestimated the difficulty of maintenance.