weight management

I’ve been struggling with weight maintenance for several years now. Three to four years ago, I had a major victory and lost 95 pounds using Weight Watchers and lots of exercising (mainly walking).

I was on top of the world. I thought I had this licked. I loved being a size 6. I got cocky.

Now, I’ve regained almost 25 pounds and a couple sizes. To be sure, I don’t look or feel nearly as bad as I did before losing all that massive weight. But I don’t feel or look as good as I did 25 or 15 pounds ago, either. And I’m really scared I’ll gain more and look, and especially, feel worse. That I’ll be a candidate for diabetes, etc. like my hubby and so many of my friends. My hypo-thyroid disorder and hearing loss is bad enough.

Daily it seems I’m faced with special occasions or too-tempting invitations to lunch, dinner, or the movies (can I resist nachos with double cheese? Think again!). There are parties at work for anything and everything and even when I avoid them, I’ll return to my desk to find a piece of cake and ice cream sitting there.

My walking has pretty much been curtailed. I still walk during breaks at work or during my daughter’s softball practices. However, we put my son into karate (for discipline reasons) and that’s six days a week (except when there’s a softball game or other special event and we have to skip karate). My grandson who lives with us also takes karate. And the girls and I started going to adult karate class after their classes. So by the time we’re out of karate, it’s late and we’re tired and it’s usually dark. Bye bye nightly walking.

I’d hoped that karate would be just as good if not better exercise. But I’m gaining weight. Of course, I’m so exhausted, so hungry by the time I finish all this, I practically attack the fastest food available. Usually fast food. Sometimes Subway which isn’t bad, but I can’t afford that all the time. I keep thinking, I’ll be bad (with eating) just this one night and I’ll be less tired, more able to cope with it “tomorrow night”. Then the vicious cycle resumes the next night.

Plus I always feel hungry. What gives with that? It must be stress or emotion. During the day, despite the parties, I’m pretty good at work. I bring my carrots or radishes to munch on. I keep bananas and apples and gum and weight watchers candy available. I bring WW lunches or vegetable soup or spinach for lunch. Of course, I’m getting sick of WW lunches and spinach and if my lunch gang says let’s go for pizza or order in Chinese, I lose it, and I’m right in the middle of the feeding frenzy, ditching my low calorie food.

The hunger is in my throat. Overwhelming, excruciating hunger. I hate it. According to articles on the web, this is emotional, not physiological. Even knowing that, it’s extremely hard to ignore, especially at night when I’m completely exhausted but starved. Right now, I’m on my second piece of sugar-free gum today so I’m trying to be good. By the time my stomach growls, then the “hunger” in my throat usually disappears and I can ignore the other for awhile with hardly a problem. How weird is that? How weird am I?

I have to, have to, have to, lose those 25 pounds, or at least 15 (lots of my friends said I looked too thin 25 or even 20 pounds ago, so we’ll see). And this time, I HAVE to keep it off. I love the karate and my goal is to make black belt to the nth degree and stay in the program. But I have to get a handle on this eating and the exhaustion.