I haven't been able to lose any weight since I started tracking again back in January. As a matter of fact, I've actually put more weight on since then. I think my biggest problem has been not really being able to identify my motivation.
Being completely honest, at one time my biggest motivation was how I looked. I was embarrassed to be seen in a swimming suit and wanted to look better. But it's hard to care as much about that when being skinny and fit can't do as much to improve my looks as it once could. Lots of people told me that once you hit 40 things just change. Boy were they right! My wrinkles are much more pronounced and my eyebrows are...disappearing. Plus I've been having a breakout of pimples lately. How is that fair: wrinkles and pimples?! After giving birth to and nursing two children, gravity is taking over everywhere and neither my front nor my back are where they used to be. So the upshot of all of this is that while I still want to look as good as possible, there's not much I can do about some of my current physical issues.
I know that my real motivation should be my health and being able to continue doing things that I enjoy like hiking and hanging out with my kiddos. But the reality of that situation is that I am very healthy based on my latest blood tests, and I have plenty of energy to hang with my children (other than when I haven't slept). I think that's actually been the biggest part of my problem with getting my head back in the game: I'm currently fit and healthy enough to do those things.
So I have to figure out why it even matters if I lose weight. I think the real reason is because in the absence of getting my weight back down to a more reasonable number, it just continues to rise, and it will eventually become a problem again. Additionally, I do think that some of my sleeping issues and my knee and hip pains would be lessened with less weight on my frame. I don't want to be like my father and be spectacularly unhealthy and miserable (I know there were extenuating circumstances and I do have some sympathy, I just don't want to feel like that), and I certainly want to live longer than 67 years.
I'm just a smidge under 5'5" tall. When I started high school I weighed 105 pounds. I got more heavily involved in sports during my high school years and started doing some weight training, and finished my senior year at 115 pounds. I managed to avoid the full "freshman 15" when I started college, and when I got my bachelor's degree I weighed about 122 pounds. Then I got married and my weight crept up to about 128 pounds. Then I got pregnant with my daughter and my weight plummeted back down to 115 pounds. It's amazing how easy it is to lose weight when you can't eat!
Before I got pregnant with my son I was back up to about 132 pounds. I didn't lose weight during that pregnancy, and reached 160 pounds right before he was born. In 2010 when I listened to a doctor explain to my dad that he didn't feel good because of his weight, I had reached a non-pregnancy high weight of 150 pounds. When I stood on the Wii Fit the little line had crossed over from high-normal to overweight. So in 2011 I set a goal of getting my weight back down to 128 pounds. But I was so successful that I actually dropped all the way back down to 112 pounds before stabilizing at my high school graduation weight of 115 pounds. I stayed there for nearly a year before I started letting my weight creep back up again. This morning when I stood on the scale it showed 138 pounds.
Since I've attempted to start losing weight again in January my goal was somewhere around 115 pounds. But I don't know that 115 pounds is a reasonable goal for me. I know that I can get there, but I don't think I can stay there long-term since it means giving up too much. Some people told me I was too skinny at that weight (I'm not entirely sure I agree), but it was hard at family gatherings when I had to be so careful that I think it hurt people's feelings. So my new goal is 125 pounds. I know I can stay there without being careful all the time; I can have the occasional treat at that weight as long as I'm good most of the time. My new motivation is not carrying this much extra weight on my frame so I feel better. I'll continue to report on my progress, and truly hope that this time I really have recaptured my motivation. Maybe only having 13 pounds to go will help too.
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