[ Excuses no more ]

For the past few years, while my weight has been creeping up and up, I can not count the number of times that I scolded myself for carrying this extra weight and even more so for not doing anything about it. Even while I was telling myself off, telling myself how bad I was, how horrible and stupid and all the rest of it there has always been one excuse that has been at the for front of it all.

About 4 years ago I joined WW for the first time. I did really well on it, lost about 15 pounds (that was all that I needed to lose at the time) and then I hit a snag in my relationship with my ex and things went south quickly. I moved back to South Africa and spent a lovely 2 months there visiting with friends, catching up on old times and eating loads and loads of the food that I had been "missing out" on. LOL, now that I look back at it I think I might have been trying to make up for the years of missing out in the short 2 months that I was there. I ate, and ate and ate. Anyways, when I came back my friend very politely pointed out that in the two months that I had been back home I had gained back a lot of my weight. She was right of course but I could feel myself rebelling against my "used to be thinner" self.

Every time I went to pick up a chocolate bar or dessert, she would tell me how I shouldn't eat that, or when I had a lovely meal and wanted to go back for seconds she would remind me that that is not what thin girls do. She didn’t hesitate to point out that where I used to walk to work and back everyday I now did nothing more than what was absolutely necessary. Every time I would try on an item of clothing she would make a little comment about how much tighter it was getting or how I could no longer do the zip up without lying on the floor. Before I knew it, she was everywhere and my guilt and shame where growing as well.

I am not sure where she came from or why I let her stick around for so many years but just lately I have been hearing her more and more. Maybe it has been because the scale has not been moving for me and so I have been feeling very despondent with it all, maybe it is just because of everything else that I have had going on in my life lately. This afternoon I feel like I had one of those A-ha moments, as Oprah calls them. The voice, the disapproving tone and comments, the excuses - it seemed to all wash over me like a wave and I realised in that moment, that the reason that I had been giving my "thinner me" for staying fat and unhealthy was this…. "I didn’t want to have to count points for the rest of my life."

And then I realised it…..for the past few weeks I have been using Sparkpeople to help me keep track of what I have been eating and how much I have been exercising and I realised that keeping track of calories is not all that much different from writing down my daily points. It was just new, and interesting and different which is why it had appealed to me. So today I have decided to go back to WW points. It worked for me in the past and to some degree I have still been using it over the years. …..Isn't it weird how your brain just remembers that a chicken kebab with no mayo is 9 WW points and every time you do go to have one this figure pops up in your mind? Totally weird!

So, as of right now I am going to go back to my WW points. I wont be able to join a group at the moment but for now I am going to do it at home and I am going to make sure that I get more exercise.