Weight Watcher

If anyone has found me and come back, you'll notice a change (beyond the aesthetics; I did tweak some of the visuals on the blog, and may play around with those a bit more until I'm satisfied): I've expanded the already silly long title of this blog further still in order to add "Weight Watcher." Ridiculous as it might seem, this actually took some courage. I did, it is true, mention in my first post and in my "about me" that I wanted to lose some weight. But I included it almost as a parenthetical, and in fact not in the first draft of either of those items, as it made me flinch to announce it on the blogosphere ("announce" being a little grandiose, since I think only one or two people have found their way here thus far!). It's a measure of the large degree of shame that I can carry around this issue that I find it hard to say even anonymously, and in "real life" I've mentioned it to no one outside a WW meeting except my beloved and my sister. Which makes it clear that it's pretty damn important to say.

Clearly by first mentioning it as an aside, I wanted to make it seem like it's just not that big a deal--yeah, I'm here to write and think about food, and, um, I'm just going to quietly lose this weight on the side. It's so hard to admit that I have to do this--like it's an admission of failure. And to make it worse, I'm reluctant to talk about my attempt to finally lose the weight out fear of... yes, more failure!! I recognize in an abstract/intellectual way that that's a lot of emotional drama to heave onto this process, that it is unhelpful to make the stakes about shame and failure rather than just about... wanting to lose 20 pounds. But I guess there's very rarely a "just" when it comes to weight, is there?

I've spent some of my adult life really healthy and thin, a lot of it just a little bit overweight, some of it more overweight then I really should be. But in general, especially in recent years, I've hovered 15 pounds above where I'd really like to be, pretty consistently. Not catastrophic, maybe just not catastrophic enough to fool myself into thinking I don't have to do anything about it (if you see the logic). But as a person who is only 5'2", those pounds can make a huge difference. I look at pictures of me at my thinnest and my heaviest, and the difference is pretty shocking.

So. I joined Weight Watchers, for the first time ever, on May 11th. I weighed in at 154.6.  My last weigh-in was on May 31st, and I was down to 151.4. Three pounds so far, but already more healthy and toned, thanks to working out really consistently.

My goal at this point is to get down to 134, or a 20 pound loss from my start. I do think this is doable. It's at the upper end of what's considered healthy for someone who is 5'2": the BMI charts list up to 137. But I'm pretty muscular, so I think the BMI doesn't tell the whole story for my body. It's hard to say now, but I think that at 134 I'll look pretty good. Remember, in that first photo I'm probably at 127, and I definitely look thin. (So... maybe the invisible ink goal is to get down to 130 or so, but I'll make that call after I hit my first goal!). I'm 42 now, not 30 like I was in that first photo. And I want a goal that I can achieve and above all maintain. One step at a time.