I Gave Myself Permission to Get Fat

And then I had the dress size shock of my life!

The first time I became fat was during the time we were adopting our daughter. I was 29 years old. A neighbor was pregnant and we both ate our way through our baby waiting. She lost most of her extra weight when she delivered and I joined Weight Watchers. I think I was about 135 pounds when I joined.

There was no sugar of any kind on the plan back in those days and when for my birthday that year Larry bought a cake and invited some neighbors over, I ate an orange! The plan then was different than it is now and extremely limited in what you could eat — fish three times a week, no bread after lunch (and only a few times a week), you had to make your own ketchup, organ meats once a week.

I made it to Lifetime (hit my goal and stayed there six weeks) and then stopped going to meetings. I convinced myself that I knew how to eat and didn’t need the “worthless” meetings. I was able to follow the plan for a few years without the motivation of the class leader and all the other members but slowly started to slip back into my old ways.

When I was pregnant with our son I gained lots of weight — I was 156 when I gave birth. I, of course, lost much of it when I delivered but was still higher than the 135 I was when I joined Weight Watchers for the first time. Back I went and lost again. Again I stopped going to meetings and a few years later yo-yoed up.

Several times again I tried Weight Watchers, using the Fat and Fiber Plan (I think I was the only person it worked for because they got rid of it after just a year) and Points (which I hated the first few times I tried it because it wasn’t intuitive to me) and each time I’d quit before I got back to my goal weight or just because I just wasn’t motivated enough.

I also tried other plans — anything to lose weight. I tried Medical Weight Loss, eDiets, the cabbage soup diet, the grapefruit diet, and others I can’t recall but which didn’t work in the long run (some not even in the short run!). I just kept going back to my old eating ways and gaining weight.

I continued to give myself “permission” to gain. If I was 149 I’d convince myself that it was OK because I wasn’t 150. When I got to 152, I decided that it wasn’t 155. And, when I got to 168, well, it wasn’t 170! It was easier to keep eating than to find the motivation to cut back. Whatever was keeping my motivation at bay, it was the “ice cream diet” that got me to my heaviest! Every night, my husband would scoop out big bowls of ice cream for each of us. To him, it wasn’t a serving unless you could see it over the top of the bowl, and by golly, I wanted my serving!

The one thing I’ve learned along the way is that motivation is the most important thing to keep you on track. Just making the decision to diet doesn’t keep you there. Something has to push you to start. For me, it was my friend, Tom’s wedding. Tom was getting married at a casual afternoon wedding in April 2007, and I didn’t have anything I thought appropriate for the occasion. I went shopping a dozen times and, when I was in New York, “shopped” in my mother’s closet but couldn’t find anything that didn’t make me feel fat and frumpy.

Finally, the week of the wedding, I found a dress I liked — but it was a size 16. I’d never been that fat (I wore a size 14 to our son’s wedding a few years earlier and that killed me, but apparently not enough to diet). I was too close to the wedding date to keep shopping, so I bought the dress. But, I stood at the cash register and cried. I’d never worn a 16 before and I was devastated.

I made the decision then and there to go back to Weight Watchers. After I finished paying I drove over and joined. I weighed in at 174.4 pounds, the highest I’d ever been. (Weight Watchers weighs in tenths of pounds because each tenth lost is a victory). I don’t know what I would have done if there hadn’t been a meeting that evening. I’d probably be over 200 pounds now! For some reason (as if being a size 16 wasn’t enough!), I stuck with it.

And, I still ate ice cream every night. I just didn’t eat a bowlful — I ate a pre-portioned Skinny Cow or Weight Watchers bar or cone — and was still satisfied. If I couldn’t eat my nightly ice cream, I likely wouldn’t have stayed on the program. (I continue to eat ice cream just about every night to this day).

I didn’t know where I would stop but knew I couldn’t afford to buy a new wardrobe at each size down along the way. So I became a resale shopper. I bought entire seasons of clothes for about $25 each during my weight loss journey. Where before I would never consider buying clothes from second-hand shops, it became a game — a treasure hunt to find stylish clothes in good condition in whatever size I was that month! I bought work clothes and casual clothes and shoes — just no underwear or bathing suits! I don’t remember setting foot in Macy’s during my weight loss!

When I made it to my goal weight (now 140 due to my “advanced age”) I knew I wasn’t finished so I kept losing. I was about 125 in December 2007 when we were going to visit my parents in New York. My mother hadn’t seen my weight loss and I was excited about showing off the new me. But, she died two days before we were going to be there and she never saw the fruits of all my hard work. And, after her death, I lost more weight and was down to 119 before I got hold of my emotions again and was able to put some of that back.

I decided that this time I would work for Weight Watchers when I made it back to my Lifetime goal. I started with the company in March 2008 and have kept off most of the weight (I’m still under goal, which I must be to continue to be an employee) since then. It’s not always easy but keeping others motivated and having to stay below goal myself is the accountability I need to keep up with this “lifestyle change” for, hopefully, the rest of my life.

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