Who Will I Be If I Don't Lose This Weight?

"Who will I be if I don't lose this weight?" 

I read something similar to this statement in a book a few weeks ago.  I can't even remember which one but the essence of it was:  who will I be if I don't reach my goal?  It stopped me cold in my tracks.  Certainly I've known for a long time that I'm more than just a number on a scale, and yet time and time again I've failed to do the one thing that is always at the top of my list to accomplish.  I know losing weight won't solve all my other problems but it would certainly boost my self-confidence - not just for looking and feeling better but because I gave my all to something and made it happen.

I don't know when or how I fell into this mindset of not being able to accomplish things that are certainly within my power to change.  The rational side of me knows that I'll never weigh what I did when I was 21, but then again, I'm not the same person now as I was then.  I've always known my physical appearance would change, as would my views about the world and my place in it - evolving through the trials and tribulations of adulthood.  But I never thought I'd stop rising to a challenge.  I never thought I'd sell myself so short for so long.

While that famous saying from Apollo 13 - "failure is not an option" - has become as much of a mantra as Reebok's "just do it" to those of us looking for inspiration with our weight loss struggles, today's post title resonates with me even more.  Failure can in fact be a noble effort - if that effort meant giving it everything you had.  I've had to walk away from things I desperately wanted in my life but couldn't have because everything I had to work with wasn't enough.  That is noble failure - being able to walk away from it with your head held high, knowing that you gave it everything you had.  But that is not what I've done with my weight loss efforts.  I have NOT given it my all on a consistent basis.  I could never walk away from it now knowing I really didn't try my best.

So who will I be if I don't lose this weight?  I'd be someone who gave up on myself without trying my best to become better.  I have everything I need to succeed, but this time I will focus even more on perseverance and patience; two qualities I need to work very hard on developing. 

The Forest for the Trees

I've been getting down on myself so much lately about not losing weight and accomplishing some other goals that I totally forgot to give myself some credit on the thing (person) that mattered to me the most.  As I mentioned in my last post, it has been 10 hard years to achieve this, which is probably why I didn't recognize it at first - I just didn't trust that all our hard work was hopefully nearing an end and had resulted in what I'm so proud to share with you:

My happy boy!

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."

Helen Keller

(P.S. No, he's not a real lifeguard so don't ever ask him for help if you see him on the beach.  I just think he's going through a "Baywatch" phase.)

Lessons Learned

It wasn't a pretty picture here in ChunkyMonkeyMamaland as I took stock of what I'd hoped to accomplish in 2012 versus what I really did.  Since this is a weight loss blog and one of my goals was to lose weight, I must admit, red face and all, that I lost a total of...drum roll please....0.2 pounds!

There were various ups and downs all year.  I learned a lot about my behavior but haven't yet modified it to generate a meaningful weight loss - and after my most recent blood test coming back "pre-diabetic" for the third straight time - I know I can't keep kicking the can down the road.  I learned that it takes very little chaos to throw me off track.  What can I say?  I'm a spaz.

I've also learned that preparation can take an awful lot of the anxiety out of the chaos.  But I still shop haphazardly for groceries and when the munchies hit me mid-afternoon or my husband asks what's for dinner, I'm usually scrambling for a solution - and it usually isn't a good choice.  It is a fast choice, but not a good one.  My idea of throwing together a dinner is some variation of opening a couple of cans and a bag of noodles.  This needs to change as well.

Mostly, though, I find it difficult to focus and shut off all the other outside noise when it comes time to decide what plan I'm going to follow.  I am so easily distracted and overwhelmed with the choices around me that I often try something for a few days, get knocked off track by some chaotic event, and then begin again with a different plan.  Rinse and repeat.  I'm seriously starting to wonder if I have some form of adult ADD.

At my age, New Year's is a time of reckoning, and when I look back to see how far I've come, I often find I've either been in neutral or reverse the entire year; always thinking there will be a second chance to do the right thing.  I will be the first to admit that I'm my own harshest critic - I tend to accentuate the negative.  But there have been all kinds of instances of me coming close to completing something and then putting on the brakes just before the finish line.  Hello self-sabotage, my old friend.

I would like at this time next year to feel some pride in my accomplishments - whatever I decide them to be.  This year did have its good moments:  most important of which is that my teen finally found the help he so desperately needed and is now flourishing.  It was a hellish 10 years of tracking down one specialist after another and weeding out the good from the bad, battling a constant onslaught of complaints from the schools and neighbors about his problems and my competency as a mother, and almost complete isolation from "regular" folks throughout.  Compassion in these parts is hard to come by.  The teen had many labels pinned on him by so-called experts, one more extreme than the other, but I knew there was more good in him than they ever gave him credit for.  And this past March we finally landed in the very good hands of some very good people who knew just what to do, and he is now a very happy, healthy, high-achieving child that I always knew he could be.  It took it's toll though, wreaking havoc with my emotions, relationships and ability to work outside the home. 

Hopefully, the worst is behind us and we can leave all that wreckage in the past.  Now, maybe, I can devote the same effort and intensity to getting me back to a good place.