Decisions, Decisions

Clearly, I had to lose weight quickly and keep it off. The more weight I could lose the better. As I began to contemplate what to do, things were somehow different. I wanted this to be it. I didn't want to go through this again. I considered what I'd done in the past to lose weight, what worked and what didn't. I realized that ultimately none of them worked. If they had, I wouldn't be facing this dilemma yet again.

In my middle 20's I lost a significant amount of weight. I wore a size 8, even a size 6 in a few things, depending on the style. I thought, however that I had failed. The number on the scale never got below 134. I couldn't see how thin I was because I couldn't see past that number, and a bit of a tummy bulge. I read someplace that a woman that was 5 feet tall should weigh 100 lbs. For every inch over that she should weigh, an additional 5 pounds. At 5'4", my weight should be at most, according to that theory, 120 lbs. I always wanting to be a little bit better than the rest thought I should weigh 117.

Therein was my whole problem - unrealistic expectations, and "all or nothing" type thinking. I couldn't see the progress I had made because I had not achieved, or exceeded my goal. It is like thinking I failed the test because I made 95% rather than 100%. Besides that I was either on a diet or not on a diet.

The first thing I did was change my mindset about success. It sounds easy but it was a struggle and continues to be from time to time. The greatest majority of my struggles have been in my mind rather than the kitchen. Obviously, I had to get to the maximum skydiving weight, but that was an attainable goal. Losing 10 pounds in 5 months was just 2 pounds a month.

I still needed an eating plan. Like just about every other overweight woman in America, I'd done every diet known at least two times. I considered what worked at least in the short term, and what I could live with. I read everything I could get my hands on, particularly about people that lost 100 lbs or more. The common denominator I discovered was that everyone that was successful created their own plans, picking and choosing parts of various eating plans that worked for them.

I also learned about a weight loss theory in which the dieter develops an immunity to the eating plan. This would explain the plateaus almost every dieter reaches. They finally give up in frustration when the plateau cannot be broken, regain the weight, and the cycle repeats itself over & over again. It was like a light bulb went off in my head. I'd lost weight plenty of times, on plenty of different diets but never reached my goal, because they seemed to quit working even when I'd been 100% compliant. The way to break through the immunity is to switch between two eating plans. Finally, it was what I had been looking for!! It is still an unproven theory as far as science is concerned, but for me it was and is just the ticket!!

I decided to do the diet I'd done in my 20's, where I'd had my greatest success, and switch to low carb. In my next post, I'll fill in a few details about how that all worked.

Thanks for reading.

March 11, addition
If you lived in the Nashville area in the late '70's or early '80's, you may remember the Rotation Diet. Dr. Martin Katahn from Vanderbilt had a theory that our bodies adapted to the caloric intake and he developed the rotation diet in which the calories consumed changed after a certain number of days. The whole city, including me, went on the diet. People went to Kroger to weigh in each week and get their shopping lists. I grew weary of counting the calories, and at that time didn't have much weight to lose anyway, so I gave up. Anyway, it seems that the theory, I ran across on the Internet is similar to the idea Dr. K had years ago.