Starting Over

The headline caught my eye last week. “Oprah Weighs 200 Pounds!” It screamed at me from the computer screen. Intrigued, I clicked on the link.

The article was basically a promo for the upcoming issue of Oprah’s magazine, in which she wrote a column confessing she’s gained 40 pounds in two years, hitting what she calls “that dreaded 2-0-0.” However, I wasn’t surprised. Oprah’s weight struggles have been reported on for 20 years. This didn’t seem newsworthy to me.

But the article came back to haunt me when I weighed myself a few mornings later. I could tell the pounds had been creeping back on because my pants were tight. “You just need to cut back and you’ll be fine,” I told myself as I stepped on the scale.

Fine was the last word I’d use to describe myself when the digital number finally flashed at me. I had lost 23 pounds on Weight Watchers three and a half years ago. All my hard work was ruined—I had gained back 18 pounds, which is more than just a few.

Feelings of shame and disgust overwhelmed me as I showered and struggled to get dressed. The thesis from Oprah’s article danced through my head: How did I let this happen?

I’ve always been a “big” girl. I reached my current height of 5’9” by the time I was 12 and in seventh grade. I remember going to the doctor that year for an exam and finding out I weighed 120 pounds. I was devastated. I always felt so much bigger than my friends, who were several inches shorter and several pounds lighter than I was. I maintained that weight until I graduated from high school. I still felt like an Amazon next to my still shorter and thinner friends.

My weight started creeping up my freshman year of college. I kept my weight down in high school by skipping breakfast and lunch, starving myself all day until I came home and pigged out at dinner. Immediately after dinner, I would go for a 30 minute walk. All of that was history now. College brought pizza delivery, late nights out with friends and a steady diet of junk food. A bout of depression after my boyfriend left didn’t help. I packed on 50 pounds and was a bloated, lethargic mess.

I joined a gym after I started working at KMOX, determined to lose weight and get into shape once and for all. I started slowly, focusing on the treadmill and other cardio machines, but I was bored and struggling to motivate myself. Kickboxing was just starting to become popular, and a co-worker who belonged to my gym introduced to his trainer, a kickboxing instructor.

I hired Jamie for a weekly kickboxing lesson and started attending his classes at the gym. It was hell. I struggled during our first session, only lasting 30 minutes. But I finally found an exercise that I loved. I was determined not to give up. I kickboxed with Jamie for three years and lost 30 pounds. I also picked up a strength training routine and was in the best shape of my life. I went to Miami on vacation and proudly wore a bikini on the beach for the first time.
I returned from vacation to discover Jamie was leaving to open his “exclusive” gym. In other words, expensive. I was changing careers, moving from journalism in public relations, which meant I would be working a 9 to 5 schedule. Neither my gym nor Jamie’s new expensive gym were convenient after I changed jobs.

I had been without a gym for three months when I found a new gym close to work. I was disappointed to learn that kickboxing wasn’t offered, but I quickly found a new activity to fall in love with: yoga. I had packed on about 10 pounds during my gym hiatus, but yoga helped me lose it. I attended 90 minute classes almost daily, quickly learning the poses, their names and the yoga philosophy. I loved it all, especially when I met Erica. She was a funny, outgoing redhead who encouraged everyone to do whatever they could in class and to focus on themselves instead of competing with fellow students. Yoga became a way of life for me.

I even followed Erica two years later when she left the gym for a yoga studio. I had changed PR jobs and was unhappy, using food to self-medicate. My weight was creeping up again, but I still practiced. But then Erica left St. Louis to go to Albuquerque to study alternative medicine. And that was the end of my yoga days.

I quit exercising, but I kept overeating and eating junk. I would wake up every morning, vowing that today would be the day I would start taking better care of myself. I would then find myself in line at Starbucks on the way to work, ordering the usual sugar laden mocha drink topped with whipped cream. I would order fast food for lunch, snack on candy from the vending machine and then go home exhausted.

This went on for a year until I finally found a new job at the corporate office of our local YMCA. I got a free membership as a perk and was convinced that I’d finally get back into shape. I could work out during the day, which I did, but I was still chugging the Starbucks and eating the junk and not losing a single pound.

The YMCA laid me off 14 months later, citing budget cuts. With my free membership gone and no job prospects in sight at the holidays, I sank back into depression and self-medicating with food. I stopped weighing myself. I was out of work for four months when I was offered a job. I had to buy new suits in a bigger size because none of my clothes fit.

Tired of being tired and sick of being fat, I visited the Weight Watchers web site. My older brother had told me about some co-workers of his who had lost a lot of weight on the program, but I was skeptical. I wasn’t interested in going to a meeting (I already attended enough of those), but when I found out I could do the program online on my own, I signed up.

I announced to everyone I knew that I was on Weight Watchers. I became seeped in the WW discourse, always talking about points and weighing and measuring my food. After my first week on the plan, I was thrilled to find out I had lost four pounds. I kept it up, losing 23 pounds in a few months. And then I lost interest. Pizza delivery came calling again.

And now, three and a half years later, I’m almost right back where I started, asking myself how it happened. I’m 35 now, and I’ve been unhappy with my weight for 23 years. I’m tired of the struggle. I’m tired of feeling inadequate and ashamed of my size. I had two options: accept it or do something about it for good.

I thought about my father and Grandma Betty, both overweight. Both battled heart disease. My father almost died. Grandma Betty did. I thought about why I struggle with food, why I comfort myself with it. I looked at the treadmill in the corner of my office, thinking about the CSA share I had purchased for next year. Either I could change or accept it.

I chose change. Stay tuned.