Would I like to lose weight? Yes.
Will I lose weight? Maybe.
Look at this picture (if you are on a phone turn it sideways):
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| The horizontal grid lines are ten pounds apart. The blue line was my goal weight for most of this time period. The red line is a place I'd be happy to be now. |
This is the last 35 years of my life, as told by my weight. Key on the numbers:
- 1988: I join weight watchers for the first time, at age 33. The weight I was then is a weight I would love to be now!
- 1997: I move from Chicago to DC for a major career change, the same week my father dies. After about a year settling in, I buckle down and lose weight.
- 2008: My sister dies unexpectedly, resulting in a major lifestyle change as I become a parent in the midst of grief.
- 2010: I start this blog, determined to gain control over at least the physical parts of my life as life with grief-stricken adolescents remains chaotic. I de-emphasize work.
- 2019: I retire, which blows up every habit I ever had. And then the pandemic strikes.
- 2022: I embrace "intuitive eating", buying and eating whatever I want whenever I want.
Why do I keep coming back to this picture? Am I just wallowing in fact that my current weight is right up at my all time peak from 25 years ago? What can I learn by looking at this history, enriched with other stories of my life? Memories are faulty, but here my actual weight is recorded accurately. Looking back over this blog has also been helpful, to color in what was going on in my life during the ups and downs recorded on the graph. Here are some tidbits I've gleaned from anchoring my other memories in the truth of my weight:
- Losing a lot of weight for me is likely to happen relatively quickly, if at all.
- Not paying attention to what I eat and what I weigh means I'll gain weight.
- Each significant weight loss involved eating low carb a lot of the time, not eliminating sweets entirely, and never choosing low-calorie formulations of real food but instead cooking and eating more vegetables and meat from scratch.
- Each significant weight loss required a great deal of attention and focus, taking up bandwidth in my life.
- Each weight loss period was also associated with increased exercise and conscious activity levels.
How might I turn the above information into actual weight loss? Do I have the motivation and interest to focus on this? Stay tuned, I guess, because I don't know the answer yet.
3 comments:
This was a good post. I, too, have noticed similar trends: the focus weight loss requires, the need for real food--but low-carb, careful eye on quantities, lots of produce, scratch cooking.
Pounds have slipped back on me--must take stock....
Hat tip to your graph. Your clearEyed facing of facts is admirable. I almost said inspiring but nothing would inspire me to this level of record keeping, never mind translating it to a 35 year summary. But I do admire you. I also appreciate it for the thoughts it provokes.
I am thinking most about losing a lot of weight quickly, because that is a measure I do not have. Never thin, my weight ballooned at the end of college. Two different summers in my early 20s I lost 15 lbs, so that was my lightest as an adult. then in my 30s I quit smoking and had two kids, so went back up 20 lbs. then after 50, another 15 lbs, and I have been battling that since. My expectations too have changed. I would be happy to be 15 lbs over my good weight - which was not thin- of my early 20s. I am about 12 lbs away, and that is after working assiduously since Feb to lose 10 lbs. I guess I do not think I never will lose a lot of weight quickly because I never have.
I need to post this to go look at your our conclusions again.
Liz
Not paying attention to what I eat and what I weigh means I'll gain weight.
Each significant weight loss involved eating low carb a lot of the time, not eliminating sweets entirely, and never choosing low-calorie formulations of real food but instead cooking and eating more vegetables and meat from scratch.
Each significant weight loss required a great deal of attention and focus, taking up bandwidth in my life.
Each weight loss period was also associated with increased exercise and conscious activity levels.
Of these four, only 1and 4 are true for me. 2 is largely true, but I don’t watch carbs and I do eat some skinny pop and diet fudsicles. Funnily enough, that is related to 3, and trying to lose weight without it crowding out everything else. My coach keeps pushing low hanging fruit in terms of prep, and just better choices about what’s available when I don’t prep. It has made me much more relaxed about the whole process but - it is not quick, not quick at all.
Your observations about retirement give more food for thought. Work is just crapola this year with not much prospect for improvement, but I stick to my eating plans when at the office. Of course it also is a major source of stress for a stress eater, but I can see a lack of structure in retirement being disastrous for my weight.
As you say, stay tuned.
Thanks for this wonderful post.
Liz
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