Next, what's the elephant in the room? Well, it's me. The person who had weightloss surgery, shared my weightloss journey, and then sneakily avoided sharing the painful reality of my significant weight regain. As I return to this blog, I feel the need to return to the transparency of my journey, even when my experience is difficult to face and even harder to openly share.
I honestly don't have adequate words to describe how happy I was when I had lost nearly half of my body weight. I could look at my reflection in the mirror with happiness instead of the disdain I had grown accustomed to. I could see strength and beauty in my body in a way that I never had before. And I had achieved this by fully focusing on making ME first and doing everything I could to make me the best/smallest/strongest person that I could be.
But then things started slipping. I started working (which fulfilled gaps in my life that I hadn't even realized were there), Jerry's job demanded so much of his time, and life through some significanat stressors my way. So bad habits snuck back into my life. I found myself relying heavily on wine to relax at the end of each day and to quiet my overactive brain to let me sleep. I responded to anxiety with snacks that I could eat without feeling full, just adding calories and pounds.
Through a series of strange events, our military trajectory changed considerably and we relocated to Fort Polk, LA at the end of August. Fort Polk returned considerable family time to our life, which was a welcome change. But the remoteness of this location is taking an emotional toll. We knew that it would be remote, but I don't think any of us were really prepared for how difficult that would be for us. I joke about the closest Target being an hour away (which is 100% true), but joking is the only way to try to handle the extreme feelings of isolation. And, unfortunately, this isolation does not naturally inspire or motivate me to make positive changes.
So...back to the weightgain and becoming the elephant in the room. I have gained so much weight that I'm pretty much at my pre-surgery weight. Not my highest weight, mind you. But at a weight that essentially negates having surgery in the first place. And that has sent my mind spinning in two divergent directions. On bad days, I feel like a colossal failure. I thought that surgery would give me a chance, finally, to succeed. Yet here I am, fat again. Even with a tool that was designed to make me succeed. Which makes my failure seem even greater that it did before surgery. On good days, I see that many people who have been 'successful' with weightloss surgery have replaced one addiction with another and now obsess over maintaining a rigorous exercise schedule and an extremely restrictive diet that really don't seem sustainable for me over time. On these days, I shift my focus to loving myself regardless of size, accepting that I am not meant to be extremely small, and making a commitment to healthy habits that are not tied to a number on the scale.
So here I sit at the beginning of 2019, trying to navigate my way into a healthy life of self-love and self-care. I'm beginning to think my journey is not really about losing weight, but learning to love myself in the skin that I'm in throughout my journey, rather than loving an idea of myself at the end of the journey. That is not to say that I am not committed to always striving to be a better and healthier person; I just won't pin my own self-worth on my size. I want my children to see a mom who never gives up on herself, who falls down but gets back up again, and who never stops trying to make choices to live a healthier and happier life. I don't want my kids to grow up seeing a mom that is always trying to lose weight. To that end, zero of my goals that I set this year will involve losing weight. I suspect that will happen as a side effect of achieving my other goals, but it will never be the objective.
I feel particularly compelled to set the stage for my children, to give them an example of self-love and self-care. I encourage them to celebrate their own bodies and need to do a better job at celebrating my own.
So my January goals include achieving daily step and activity goals, reading and writing for pleasure, keeping up with my memory planner, enjoying a bubble bath once a week, reducing the amount of wine that I drink, and exploring some healthier eating strategies.
That's all for now. Thank you for letting me share my journey with you.
