I’m losing it

The New Year’s resolution that started it all…

When I was young, I had “That” kind of body, one that rivaled lingerie models. I was 5’9” by fifth grade and voted most likely to appear in Playboy when we were seniors. One of my favorite sayings as an adult is, “If I had the body I had then and the self-esteem I have now, I could take down small countries.” Anyway…

Of course I took my body for granted, blamed it on great DNA and went about my business, never counting calories or carbs, never setting foot into a gym nor having a regular workout regimen. Back then if anyone had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I told them an author. I wanted to write my own books and illustrate them too. Aw, those dreams that are put on the back burner. Are you familiar with that old saying, “youth is wasted on the young”? It’s true.

Life happens. Years rolled by. I had a baby, got married. I got comfortable in my job. Decades rolled by. My baby turned into an adult, my job changed. Life. Knowing the average woman gains approximately five pounds a year, I was pleased with myself when those years went by and I only gained 2-3 pounds, way below average, right? Okay, to be fair, there were a few years I gained more than average, 7-10 pounds. In the summer of 2014, I found the only clothes I could find that fit right were from the big and tall girl stores and I became a regular at Lane Bryant and Torrid. (Ever cried in a dressing room? You don’t really have to answer that out loud.) I reveled in the fact I was still buying the smallest sizes on those racks until those didn’t fit me anymore and I had to buy the next bigger size. At that point, I was fifty pounds more than the day I gave birth to my daughter. That’s right, fifty pounds heavier than I was when I was ten months pregnant! (seventy-two pounds heavier than when I conceived her.) What the hell?!? Right?!

“That does it!” I said in frustration in December of ’14, you know, that magical month that resolutions and promises fly from our mouths. 2015 was going to be my year. My goals were simple and attainable. I wanted to lose one pound a week (52 weeks = 52 pounds) and write my first novel. The strategy would be just as easy, I would work out (with an Insanity program I bought from the internet) 30 minutes a day and write 500 words a day. No sweat. (No pun intended-okay, maybe there was a pun intended right there, anyway…)

Everything was going along fine until June. I had reached my pound a month goal and was down twenty two pounds when I hit a plateau. I dug in, worked out harder, cut out more carbs, still the scale stayed steady. I was discouraged and sore. Then my daughter asked me one morning why I bought a dress a size too big. What? It wasn’t a new dress, I had it for years. I looked in the full length mirror. Yea, it did look a little baggy on the back side. Digging to the bottom of my closet, I found a size fourteen skirt that was just too cute to get rid of when I hit size eighteen. I slipped it on and the zipper went up without lying on the bed, in fact it was comfortable and I could sit and still breathe, a definite bonus. And, my novel was wrapping up, I found a love for writing and wrote more than five hundred words each day on a regular basis. (In fact, when I have a spare minute I find myself writing, it’s become an obsession.)

As we wrap up the first half of 2016, I’ve held steady at 199.8 pounds (which really does sound so much smaller than 200, right? And yea, easy math, I was up to 222.) I’ve found an exercise routine that works for me, not too much, not too little. I’ve kept off the twenty-two pounds and recently bought a pair of MEDIUM sized sweatpants. Total, I’ve lost 17” (one third of those off my big bootie) and finished a four-hundred forty-one page novel plus started a second one.

The realization I will most likely never be 150 pounds again, ever has become a reality for me; however, I love weighing less than my husband (this is the first time in our relationship I’ve been more than ten pounds lighter than him, we usually run about the same-within five or so pounds.) I love being in shape, my daughter used to like to tickle me until tears streamed from my eyes, but now she hesitates after her twenty year old self was taken down and tickled until she screamed mercy. It’s nice to feel strong, fit and healthy. And it’s never too late to start.