"Once a Yo-Yo... Always a Yo-Yo!"

Wow... My last post was on April 1st of this year. What is that? 94 days ago???  Basically, three months since my last communication. Way too long. It appears that I have let far too many things allow me to neglect the very essence of me... my one true passion... which is writing, and most especially, writing for you!

So without further ado...

So, let's talk about yo-yos. 

You mean the little round toy on a string that Tommy Smothers, the Yo-Yo Man, swings and gyrates and manipulates to perfection? That wonderful spinning toy of tricks where you can learn to Walk the Dog or Rock the Baby or go Around the World? First invented in China... no, Greece... no, the Philippines... suffice it to say that the yo-yo has been around for a very long time, much longer than the Pedro Flores version of the 1920's, which was later purchased by Donald F. Duncan.

No, not that yo-yo, sillies. I am talking about that annoying up and down weight loss/weight gain so many of us experience throughout our lives. Some say, once a yo-yo, always a yo-yo. Sounds pretty defeatist, but there is a certain amount of truth to that statement.  Anyone who has yo-yo'd their way up and down the scales knows that the inevitability of gaining and losing weight is certainly a reality for some of us unfortunate souls. This is not to say that we are defeated before we have even started.

Call it genetics, call it environment, call it loss of self control, or hell, call it bad luck! The truth is, obesity simply happens for a myriad of reasons. I accept that I am an obese woman, with a body shape similar to my mother and grandmother and even some aunts, nieces and cousins. That speaks to both genetics and environment. 

But what about self control? I am a person with an addictive personality, who has a passion for anything that can feed her wild compulsions, thereby, giving her a reason to get up everyday. There was a time that I drank alcohol, until the blackouts took away the pain and isolation I lived within... Hello, my name is Holly and I'm an alcoholic.

Likewise, in my youth, a little drug called speed had a magical touch for making me feel alive inside my body. For twenty years, I smoked anywhere from 2-3 packs of cigarettes a day. Frankly, some of my best writing happened while I was stoned, one way or another... Hello, my name is Holly and I'm a drug addict.

I love the taste of food. I love the rich nuance of flavors and I love the aromatic sensibilities. If this was the extent of my love for food, I would be called a gourmet, a connoisseur of fine food... Hello, my name is Holly and I'm a compulsive overeater.

For many years, I lived my life replacing one addiction with another... alcohol, drugs, food, caffeine... let's not even get me started on my collection of office, art and craft supplies. Some of these addictions have been conquered to the extent that I accepted that I was powerless and worked to relieve myself of their insidious grip on my life. More importantly, I have spent countless hours in therapy and meditation and reading and writing and journaling to discover that my addictions are a melding of my mind and body, attempting to create a safe space for me to fit into. The pain and isolation of repeated abuse teaches many of us to expect nothing from life, and for me, to search diligently for a way to not exist.

So what were we talking about? Ahhh, yes, self control, or the lack thereof. There is a widespread opinion within the addiction communities that we addicts have no self-control. I agree, and yet, I disagree. I have not had a drink in the last 33 years; my addiction to illegal drugs was broken within a year or two of that; it has been 22 years since I smoked a cigarette; and my love affair with caffeine crashed to a halt sometime in the last decade.

I have great self-control once I admit I am powerless over an aspect of my life that is leading me into suicidal defeat AND make a decision to make the changes necessary to respect and love myself enough to don the armor of courage and do battle with my addiction of the moment. Don't I? This is where I disagree with the assumption that we recovering addicts lack self-control. 

Didn't I say I both agree and disagree? Well, yes, I believe I did. My agreement lies in the endless ways I am able to exchange one addiction for another; given that I have never been actually totally free of addiction and compulsion, I would venture to say that my image of my own self-control might be skewed.

What does this have to do with being a yo-yo, endlessly bouncing up and down the weight scale? You tell me. I think the answer is as individual as we all are. For me, my addiction to food allows me to be a yo-yo. We all have to eat to survive, so it is impossible to mark our calendars with the date we last took a bite of food, in the same way as we can with our last drink or cigarette. Conquering a food addiction seems to be a never ending task that works one day and not another day.

Personally, I choose to refrain from the use of the word, never! I will never go back... I will never be fat again... I will never eat anything unhealthy, ever, ever, never! To do so would make me a liar, over and over and over again. I prefer to allow myself the courtesy of one day at a time. Today, I will not take a drink. Today, I will not smoke a cigarette. Today, I will eat like a sensible person.

Yes, I am an alcoholic, a drug addict, a compulsive overeater, and a dog-gone yo-yo, but I believe in choice. We always have a choice to make sense of our lives and defeat our demons. Don't get me wrong. I need to remind myself often of this ability to choose, but the choice is always there.

"Pain Relief is a Mighty Incentive!"

I am someone who needs to weigh herself everyday.  Yes, I know the weight loss experts advice is to weigh in moderation; no more than once a week.  However, the experts one size fits all approach does not work for a person who has considerable water weight issues.  I can actually gain 20 lbs in 10 days, only to have it disappear just as quickly.  Because of this, my doctor prescribes a water loss medication that attempts to rectify the problem.

Every time I have attempted the once a week weigh in, I have been sadly disappointed.  So often, the scale paired with my water weight issue does not show me an accurate weight.  Sadly, it is not very encouraging to have your weight remain the same after a week of pinching points or counting calories... or, worse yet, go up after working all week for the reward of marking off pounds lost.  The scale becomes a symbol of everything you are not doing right, and try as you might, it is impossible to keep telling yourself that the weight loss is there, when the scale says no.

"Measure yourself, sweetie.  You lost inches."  A familiar refrain and one that is not without truth.  The scale is not and cannot be the only instrument that measures our success when attempting to lose weight.  Taking measurements at regular intervals can be a great success tool, just as feeling the fit of your ever expanding pants gives immense satisfaction.

The truth is that motivation is a little thin in times of immeasurable chasms.  The valley of obesity is not for the faint of heart, and yet... there we are.  Lost and alone in a wilderness of fat that seems to be larger and stronger than we can ever be.  It takes a mountain of courage to take that first step towards weight loss and fitness.  It also takes unending bravery to continue down the path, through the highs and lows, over the plateaus, and into the darkest forests of savage loneliness.  For, in truth, we are alone on this journey.  We must face the terror of the voices in our own brains, constantly voicing concern over our choices.

"Didn't you eat a rather large portion of baked ham yesterday?  How do you expect to lose weight when you are constantly make poor choices?" That is the voice I call my Vindictive Mother.  She is never content to just urge me to look at my choices; she has to make sure that I know what a failure I am being.  Then there is my Chicken Soup Mother.  "You might as well have a piece of pie, dear.  You deserve a little something special after such a bad week."  The Chicken Soup Mother is always there to urge a splurge, regardless of whether one is warranted or not.

My Defeatist Mother can't help but clarify how far away my goals are and just how often I have failed to reach my goals.  "You aren't going to show any weight loss this week anyway.  I don't think you are really trying."  The Defeatist Mother knows how many times you have walked this path and failed to reach your end goal.  She also knows how often you have reached that goal, only to turn around and gain your weight back, plus some.  And, she keeps those failures ever present in the back of my mind.

How many of you have named the voices in your head?  That's the first step to defeating their evil intent to destroy your success.  I have found that the best way to do battle with these voices is to armour myself with support.  Find as many kind and gentle voices as I can, people who are seriously happy and excited by my journey.  I have to reach out and open up to others about what I am doing.  Give them an opportunity to celebrate my weight loss and offer their support.  Without a doubt, if you are willing to be open and honest about your journey, the respect and happiness you meet will filter into your own being, replacing the strident voices of defeat. 

It is imperative that I follow this path of weight loss and fitness, because I have absolutely no cartilage in my knees.  I am in a state of endless and agonizing pain, where standing for any length of time past thirty seconds is beyond uncomfortable; where walking creates a grinding of bones in my knee cap and a shifting creak as the bones slip and slide against each other; and where sitting is my best option for pain relief, but even then, finding a comfortable way to ease my knees can be impossible.

I tell you all this, not for sympathy, but to explain why this journey is so important to me.  My knee doctor tells me that he would be willing to replace my knees, but not until I reach a BMI of 40%.  For me, that is somewhere in the range of 210-220 lbs.  That is a mere 17-27 lbs for me to drop off of this obese body to get to surgery.  

Considering that I have already lost 79 total pounds from my top high of 316 lbs, shouldn't this be a walk in the park to get to the goal weight?  Probably not.  Every single pound that I am able to drop represents a gritty battle against my aging metabolism, my water weight issues, and my own history of yo-yoing up and down the weight loss graph.  That doesn't mean that I won't get there, and soon, because I am determined to change these tiring, arthritic knees.  I want to walk, and dance, and play with my dog; I want to chase my grandchildren, and bicycle the Spring Water Corridor, and not give a thought to whether I can push past the pain of standing up.

My goal is to have my left knee replaced this coming September.  My hope is that I won't waver as I get closer to the surgery.

"I Want to Be Fat When I Grow Up... Don't You???"

Some folks actually think that being fat is a choice; like I woke up one day and said, "Self, wouldn't you be happier as an obese woman?  Wouldn't you like to be able to eat anything you want AND gain enough weight to make your knees creak when you walk... to gain weight until you huff and puff just reaching for an extra donut?  Doesn't that sound like a deliciously sweet life, Self?"  And with that, I would have made a conscious, well informed decision to gain enough weight that I could be split into two medium sized people.

I don't know about you, but I never had that conversation with myself and I certainly never made that conscious choice to grow from a painfully thin adolescent into an obese woman with diabetes, high cholesterol, and absolutely no cartilage left in her knees.  And once these things happened, I did not continue to make this stubborn decision to hurt my body and self esteem... at least, not consciously.

Let me ask you... How many of you folks believe you are fat because it seemed like the right thing to do?  How many of you wish you could gain enough weight to make walking an excruciating process?  Do any of you obsess about being able to ride an electric scooter, because it seems so damn glamorous?  And, gee, wouldn't it be fun to have people whisper and point and laugh about your fat butt as you walk by?  Just how many of you would raise your hand and say amen to being unable to run and play and jump with your children?

"But you like to eat, don't you? That's why you are fat."  Someone actually said this to me, in a distinctly quiet and sober tone.  "Maybe you should go on a diet."  Ya think?  Unfortunately, this one sided conversation happened at a time when my self esteem was at an all time low and all I could feel was shame and the undeniable truth of what they were telling me.  

It was all my fault that I was miserable, because I liked to eat and I was fat and the diets were incredibly awful.  It was also at a time that the world had no tolerance for obese people and diets were viewed as a penance for being out of sync with the "normal people". Half a grapefruit and a quarter cup of cottage cheese for breakfast, followed by a hamburger patty and carrots for lunch and a cup of salad with a teaspoon of oil and vinegar for dinner.  Yum yum.  Sign me up now.

If that conversation were to happen today, I envision my response being, "Yes, I like to eat.  Do you like to eat?  Please take that potato chip out of your mouth and tell me that you don't like to eat."  Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I wouldn't say this, because I believe in kindness and the people who insist on saying such foolish things are victims of their own ignorance.  If I want this world to change and be more informed and loving, then I need to take the high road and respond without contempt.  I need to initiate understanding for the path of obesity in all of it's many forms.

Some people gain weight through their genetics; some have an eating disorder; and still others have no understanding of the ridiculous calories in junk food, until it is too late.  FYI, I recently took a "free day" from my self imposed diet, which I will tell you about later.  It was Super Bowl Sunday and we ordered a Papa Murphy's Family size pizza - the Murphy's Combo.  While recording the caloric content of my slice of pizza, I discovered that the total calories in a Murphy's Combo Family Size pizza is 4,277, meaning that a 1/12 slice of pizza equals 355 calories.  Wow... to think that I used to eat 4 slices at one sitting is incredible.  I was eating at least 1420 calories for one meal, which didn't include any cheesy bread or hot wings or chips.  You get the picture.

There are a myriad of reasons that we become obese, and just as many reasons why we have trouble with weight loss... but no one that I have ever met has become obese because they were dying to check out the "Obese Lifestyle".  No one in their right mind would ever choose to take on the pain and shame and life threatening reality of obesity.

Being fat is not a choice.  Accepting who you are is a choice.  Deciding who you want to be is a choice.  And these choices do not have to conform to anyone else's choices.  For me, I want to lose weight.  I am tired of "being fat".  I am tired of working so damn hard just to walk from point A to B.  I am tired of the excruciating pain in my knees and I am tired of pretending that it doesn't matter.  Don't get me wrong.  I am not tired of being me... I just want to explore a different path that may give me more comfort than the path I walked in my youth.  

I don't want to be thin because being thin is attractive and cool.  I no longer believe in the fairy tale world of magazine models.  I want to be less fat, because I want to walk anywhere I choose to walk; I want to dance and dance and dance without thought to my knees; and I want to take back my life from the diabolical hands of diabetes and it's many allies.  I choose to live my life free.

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{It has come to my attention that some folks are having a hard time with adding comments to this post. If you are interested in adding a comment, I would be more than happy to listen to what you have to say. All you need to do is locate the following line just under this post: 

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