New Beginnings

Please bear with me. This is going to take some getting used to.

The closest I've come to blogging has been a series of begun-and-abandoned Livejournals (do people still use that?). They were all the same: the first post was a self-flagellating treatise on why I HAD to lose weight and a sincere promise that thistimewillbedifferent; the second post, a week or so later, was a teary admission that I'd fallen off the diet train but was getting back on; the third post came a month or so later and was a half-written reflection on my shame and humiliation over repeating the same dieting-and-failing cycle again; there was almost never a fourth post.

I'm breaking the cycle this time and skipping over my promises and pleas. I'm just going to try writing as I feel the need. Hopefully I can look back in a year and see the progress I've made (and hopefully that progress will be equally represented on the scales).

I'm glad I'm writing now, anyway. I feel like I've made some progress already in my weight loss, but I'm still at the very beginning steps too. I think (hope) that this is a good point for me. I'm proud of my progress and excited to see how much further I can get toward my goal.

I've been enrolled in Weight Watchers (this time) for just under four months, and I finally earned my 25 pound token.

But, um, where do I put it?

You see, the 25 pound weight loss token is designed to go on your 10% weight loss keyring. The problem? I lost 25 pounds before I lost 10% of my body weight. Yes, I know you're doing the math in your head. That means I'm still over 250 pounds. 277.2 pounds, to be exact. I started at 304 pounds even, and knowing that I was so recently over the 300 pound mark is both terrifying and exhilarating. I'm glad I'm under 300 pounds now, but...good grief. How did I get there?

I'm trying to avoid the self-flagellation, so I'm going to stop now. I'm just glad that I started writing something. And if you want to know why I decided to start writing today: I got an email about the new Weight Watchers 360 program, got scared that it will derail my modest efforts, and immediately started Googling more information. I stumbled across a thread with a post by someone who had lost 125 pounds according to her signature, so I started reading her blog and realized how much it meant to me to find a blog where the person wasn't gushing about fitting into their high school clothes. Because I was fat in high school. Fat in middle school. I'm not trying to get back to a weight I once was--I'm trying to become a new me. And with my weird luck and bad habits, who knows if that will ever happen? It's just nice to know someone else started in the same place as me, and ended up where I want to go. So thanks to The Year of the Phoenix--you inspired me, and I hope one day to be where you are.