Freakout Weight...O.M.G.

My girl-crush, Amy over at Once Upon a Time... posted recently about needing a freakout weight, a weight at which you get scared to the point of reasoning, and you will diet your way back to your goal weight.

Hello, freakout weight. I saw you on the scale this morning and almost passed out.

149.9.

I've been nudging up toward you, freakout weight, and I've been telling myself it's okay, that I will eat just this last ice cream bar, or just this last handful of chips, or just this last...and THEN I will get serious about my eating again.

Because, you know, I'm exercising all the time. So it will all even out. And, because, you know, I quit smoking, so it's understandable, even okay, that I would indulge my sweet tooth. Just for awhile. Because I'll get back on the program after I've beat that habit. Never mind the fact that when I quit smoking some fourteen years ago, now, I gained over a hundred pounds. Yeah, sure, I'll slay that demon no problem this time. No need to be vigilant about it, right? 

Hello, eight pounds in 35 days. How quickly you've managed to find me, after I worked so hard to lose you. I couldn't even outrun you in a half-marathon! But I sure did use that half-marathon as an excuse to eat, didn't I? 

Fuck. (Pardon my french. But, sometimes there's just no other way to say it.)

You would have thought I'd hit that freakout point last week, when I acknowledged, getting dressed, that if I gained one more ounce and I wouldn't be able to button my jeans. Didn't I tell you you'd be able to steal my credit card number if I carried it in my back pocket? Or later, when I conveniently avoided those jeans and switched to another pair, where I thought, "hmm, these were the jeans I was looking for in a smaller size at Costco...no smaller size needed right now."

But I didn't hit the freakout point. Instead, I hit my old standby: feeling sorry for myself. Throwing in the towel.

You don't get to 263 pounds without some self-pity, you know.

• It's harder for me to lose weight;
• I have bad metabolism;
• Obesity runs in my family;
• I learned bad eating habits as a child;
• I am stressed;
• My job is hard;
• I am a single parent;
• My children drive me insane;
• I quit smoking, didn't I? Smoking is worse for you than eating;
• I'm nervous about my new relationship;
• Confronting the fact that my loose skin may just really be part of me for the rest of my life threw me into a tailspin;
• I also learned that a root-canal tooth broke and I have to have it pulled, which makes me feel like a very sad old woman;
• No grudge, but the discussion with the plastic surgeon left me feeling badly about things I hadn't felt badly about before, and that kind of sucks;
• Oh, I've got 1,001 reasons I can fire off to you about why my life is so much harder than yours. Why you will never understand how I can struggle with my weight, and how it's *different* than why you struggle with weight. :)

Buck up, Buttercup. You're the one sporting eight extra pounds, and it didn't find you because of your bad obesity genes, it found you because you bought, and ate, both a York Peppermint Patty and a Reese's PB cup at the gas station last week. 

If there's any question about whether or not I can blow the success of the VSG surgery and re-gain the weight, uhhh, question answered, yes?

So, here's the plan. I'm back on the liquid diet. Oh, yummm, protein shakes, I've missed you sooooooo much. Not really. :) But you're going to help me re-calibrate that sweet tooth and the endless hunger (that is not really hunger). My plan is to re-create the two-week liquid diet that I endured before my weight loss surgery. Shakes during the day and a small dinner in the evening.

For sure, the next ten work days will be protein shakes during the day. This one is actually pretty easy for me, and it has had a big benefit in the past. I'm not sure how I'll address weekends, I'm working on a plan. See, my problem isn't meals. My problem is peppermint patties and peanut butter cups. My problem is the cheese quesadilla I microwaved myself at midnight last night when I went down to make sure the front door was locked. My problem is the box of Cinnamon Life Cereal that I bought on Thursday and finished by Saturday, just munching while I read my book. Munching, along with chewing off my fingernails down to the freaking NUB, to the point where it hurt to bend them. 

Re-group. Re-calibrate. Get this damn sugar and carbs out of my system and go at it fresh. I can knock this weight back off quickly, I know it. I've hit a bad patch, and I fell into a big self-pity party, but the party's over and now it's time to clean up the freaking mess.

I was going to use a picture of a messy party clean-up scene,
but this kid is adorable and she's covered in sugar, like me.

I will be holding myself accountable here on the blog. Bear with me, I may get a little cranky.