40 by 40

Around the time I turned 39 I set a goal to loose 40 pounds by my 40th birthday. Since I have been yo-yoing my entire life since adolescence, I was no stranger to the diet scene. You name the diet and I've been on it. Weight Watchers 4 times, Nutri-System 2 times, Jenny Craig 3 times, and that's just to name a few. There was a time when I actually paid the monthly fee for Weight Watchers and never showed up to a meeting for an entire year! For one, I considered it my fat tax, and secondly, I knew that I would never have the motivation to get back to it if I stopped the payment.

It used to be 20 or so pounds that I was constantly loosing or gaining, which by the way, adds up to about 180 pounds if you did the math from my previously counted attempts. As my birthdays continued to rise, so did the number on the scale and I found myself dealing with twice as much weight to loose. I have since decided that the most sensible plan for me was and still is; Weight Watchers.

So there I was in December of 2005, having already turned 40 on the 1st and down a total of 30 pounds. I didn't quite make the 40 pounds by the time I turned 40, but I was close and I was happy with what I had lost. I still fully intended on making my goal even if I was a little late.

Now here I am today, roughly 16 months from my 45th birthday, only now I have 45 pounds to loose if I wish to get to my original 40 by 40 goal weight. What happened? Culinary school happened! In January of 2006, I became a full time student in addition to my already busy life; keeping up with my three children, my husband, and our home. I managed pretty well for the first half of my 18 month school program. I continued exercising but I stopped going to the W.W. meetings. I simply could not fit it all in, especially when I took on a part time job in a restaurant. I did maintain what I had lost for a while.... until I had to endure 6 weeks of baking and pastry.

Me showing up for class every day was like an alcoholic showing up for work every day in a bar. We studied and produced everything from breads, pizzas, pretzels, cookies, cakes, pies, puff pastry with it's obscene quantities of butter, sugar sculptures, and chocolate, and ice cream, mousses, and ganache, and so much more. And we got to eat everything! Imagine eating creme brulee every day for 6 weeks. Well, I actually did. Those were the days. And those were the days that did me in.

When I look back on that time in my life, what stands out the most is my accomplishments at school and the amazing amount of energy I had to get it all done. I graduated with a 4.0 and perfect attendance. True, I packed on the pounds, gaining back everything I lost and then some. But The pounds is not what bothers me. What bothers me is how bad I feel, how tired I am all the time, how I've lost my zest and energy. If I could only feel like I did back then; full of life and enthusiasm, I would just give in to my fatness and finally accept my body for what it is, or more importantly what it is not. It's just that I know a big part of the reason why I feel so physically unfit and tired is because of the extra weight. I think my poor body has finally had enough of this constant up and down with the weight.

I have to admit, I've always had a somewhat skewed body image and I can remember times when I thought I looked pretty fat. Only now I can look at a picture from that time period to realize that I actually looked pretty good, and I was much smaller than I thought. I wasted my time and energy back then worrying over what I did or didn't look like, instead of enjoying what I had. This time around I really don't care about my body image as much as I want to regain the energy I so desperately lack. I used to get up at 4:30 a.m. because getting to school was a long drive and class started at 7:00 a.m. . Today I couldn't roll over at 4:30 a.m., even if I was rolling over on to the sexiest man alive and he was happy to see me. I'd be like; "sorry Mr. Sexy Man, come back later because I need more sleep!"

Joking aside, what I really want is to trade in the prematurely geriatric me now, for the energetic me that I was back then. I know I can't magically turn back the clock. But I also know that I have never felt worse than I feel right now. Perhaps if I lost the extra 45 pounds that I'm walking around with, then maybe walking around wouldn't be so difficult. Maybe then I could even sprint if I wanted to. So here we go again body, you know the routine. Only this time, I'm putting my goal and story out here for all to see; 45 pounds lost by my 45th birthday on December 1st 2010.

You know, I recently had this revelation while I was staring at a 7 year old picture of myself. My youngest of three was about a year old and I was probably 15 pounds less than I am today,... still 30 pounds more of me then the reasonable goal I just set. Ok, so there I am thinking like I had so many times before, "wow, I really don't look as bad as I thought I did back then, if fact... I look pretty good,... I look young,... why can't I look like that again?" Of course the last question I asked myself was crazy. I mean come on, who could look like a picture that was 7 years old and 15 pounds thinner, right?

But it did get me thinking about another kind of question. I asked myself this; "why can't I approve of myself right now, the way I am approving of this 7 year old image, the same image that I was so dissatisfied with at the time it was taken?" I realize that I'll never be as young as I am right now, though I may be thinner. But do I want to wait another 7 years before I can appreciate what I am right now? Do I really want to squander what little energy I have on feeling bad about myself? For what? So I can sadly look back at another 7 years gone by and miss the positive self image that I never had in the first place?

That's the insanity I'm talking about, and like Susan Powter once said.......stop it!!! Yes, I really said all those things to myself, and I said them out loud too. You should have seen the looks I got from all the other people in line at the grocery store. Just kidding about the grocery store. But I seriously do think I've had an awakening moment in all that. I'm consciously trying to change the way I feel about my body and self image now, instead of waiting for the body to actually change before I will allow the self image to approve or say I like it.

And tomorrow I re-start Weight Watchers. Last visit there was on May 1st 2009 and I was 173.2. It had taken me from December 12, 2008 to get there from my starting weight of 183.2. More math again,... it took 5 months for me to move the scale down 10 pounds. That's very typical of a life long yo-yoer such as myself. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how well I did over the summer. I feel confident that I will be close to the same.

I will keep you posted.