An Urban Mom’s Weight Loss Diary – Week 10

Week: 10

Pounds Lost: 21.0

This week I achieved a second major goal: I lost 10% of my starting weight. During our Weight Watchers meeting, my husband and I were both applauded and presented with a 10% WW keychain as a reward. Then the leader asked us what we had done differently in order to have been able to achieve this goal. We both answered the usual kinds of things…writing down what we eat each day, making better choices, exercising more. I felt a little disappointed – like I should have been able to give the group a really different answer; some magic bullet that nobody had heard of before that would make them all successful, too.

The talk moved on, and so did my thoughts. One thing our leader said really stuck with me, though. She said it’s important to forgive ourselves. I agree! I think we need to forgive ourselves for getting fat in the first place, and we need to forgive ourselves for those little blips we encounter along the way.

And as I thought about it more, it suddenly seemed so clear to me: you have feelings of self-loathing for being fat. To give yourself a good feeling, you eat. It’s temporary, and bad for you in the long run, but it works. This makes you more fat. The cycle continues until you decide to lose weight. No matter how well you do, there will come a point when you “cheat”; when you eat a forbidden food or too much of an allowed food. So now how do you feel about yourself: BAD. And what do you do when you feel bad about yourself? EAT. Keep this up, and the program fails. One way to break ths cycle is to forgive yourself.

Now of course the one danger is that you’ll just continue to “forgive yourself” every day until you are back where you began. I’m not talking about that kind of forgiveness – which is really more self-oblivion (and that’s a whole other topic, believe me!). I’m talking about going easy on yourself once in a while…not expecting perfection…not giving up on the whole game just because you goofed on one play. You just accept your mistake, say you’re sorry, and then give yourself a mental slap on the back before you head back out on the field to do your best once again.

It’s remarkable what power this gives you – as a person whose been held hostage by my fat and my addiction to comfort eating – I feel as if I’ve been given the key to my own prison. Any time I feel myself way up there in that lonely tower of guilt and self-loathing, I’ll just pull out the key, say, “it’s okay Kath, I know you’re sorry…just try not to do it again!” and out I’ll go, ready to slay the dragon again.

And if you’re wondering…I lost 3.2 lbs this week – one of my best weeks ever! It seems last week’s two-week weight gain theory may not be so crazy after all…

Kath is mom to two girls, aged 5.5 and 3 and is a regular contributor to urbanmoms.ca. Join her each week in the lounge for a new instalment in her Urban Mom’s Weight Loss Diary. Please share your thoughts, opinions, encouragement, etc. in comments below.