Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Here's to being able to remember the sweetness.

Thomas Fuller once said:

That which is bitter to endure may be sweet to remember.

He was so right.

As I stood on the scales at Weight Watchers tonight and watched the staff member write down my numbers, emotions wrestled in my head. If you were listening closely you may have heard the scream of frustration as I watched her write down a number that was not at all what I was hoping for. You have felt a slight breeze (and smelled a hint of garlic...sorry about that) as I breathed a heavy sigh of relief that the number was not higher than last week's. The ground may have shaken a tad as I stomped my foot before kicking myself in the ass for not caring enough this week.

You see, I had a week of "I don't give a crap". That's not to say that I ate bags of chips and gorged on chocolate. I didn't, though I was tempted. I ate good foods but I ate too much of them. Instead of a proper portion of spaghetti, I had one almost the same size as my husband had. One sandwich? Nah. I'll have two. Filled with veggies of course.

I didn't drink more than a couple of bottles of water all week and only went for a couple of walks. I drank far too much Coke and generally sat on my ass.

All this is why, when I weighed in tonight, I discovered I'd only lost 100 grams (0.22 lbs). Yup, that's what I said too.

Which brings me back to Mr. Fuller's quote up there.

This whole journey of losing weight that so many of us are on is a rather bitter one. We have spent weeks, months, years, sometimes even decades piling this weight on and chances are that, in some small way at least, we had fun doing it. Cake, booze, chocolate, chips, popcorn and more. It's all delicious, it's all available and it's now sitting on our hips in the form of lumps and bumps and cottage cheese cellulite.

Some of us look back and wonder what the hell we were doing. Others choose not to dwell on the past and just look forward.

Me? I'm stuck somewhere in the middle. I recently said that one of my new life mottoes was "No regrets". This is somewhat harder to employ when it comes to my weight, but I'm working on it.

This road that I'm traveling right now IS a bitter one. Every week when I step on those scales I'm hoping and praying that the number will be lower than the week before. Even just 100 grams. It's bitter knowing that the weight went on so quickly and so easily but it's going to take over a year (at least) to lose it all.

So why do it? Quite aside from the health issue and the desire to look smoking hot for my gorgeous husband, I need to do this. For me. For my mental health. I need to do it so that I can live past 50.

And when I'm done, I'll look great. I'll feel great. I will BE great!

And then I can look back on this adventure and think "That was SWEET".

That which is bitter to endure may be sweet to remember.